THE   PRINCIPLES   OF 

LANGUAGE-STUDY 


BY 

HAROLD   E.    PALMER    *^ 

ASSISTANT  IN  THE  PHONETICS  DEPARTMENT*' UNIVERSITY  COLLEGE  LONDON 
LECTURER  ON  LINGUISTICS  AT  THE  SCHOOL  OF  ORIENTAL  STUDIES  LONDON 
AUTHOR  OF  "the  SCIENTIFIC  STUDY  AND  TEACHING  OF  LANGUAGES"  "a 
FIRST    COURSE  OF   ENGLISH    PHONETICS"    "  lOO    SUBSTITUTION  TABLES"   ETC. 


YONKERS-ON-HUDSON,  NEW  YORK 

WORLD   BOOK   COMPANY 

1921 


/  r"/ 


PRINTED   BY   NEILL   AND   CO     LTD.,    EDINBURGH,    GREAT   liKITAIN 


PREFACE    DfiDICATOIRE 

A  MON  VIEIL  AMI  LE  COMMANDANT 

CHARLES  LEMAIRE,  ACTUELLEMENT  DIRECTEUR  DE 

L'INSTITUT  SUPISRIEUR  COLONIAL  A  ANVERS 

MoN  CHER  Commandant, 

Vous  souvenez-vous  encore  de  la  visite  que  je  vous  fis 
Pete  dernier  aux  Sources  Fraiches,  apr^s  les  cinq  annees 
tragiques  que  nous  avons  vecues  ? 

Je  m'en  souviens  encore  comme  si  c'etait  hier.  Vous 
^tiez  souffrant ;  je  vous  ai  trouve  etendu,  accable, 
affaibli,  et  je  ressens  encore  la  peine  profonde  que 
j'eprouvai  a  cette  minute  precise  ou  le  contraste  s'im- 
posait  a  mon  esprit  entre  I'etat  dans  lequel  je  vous  avais 
quitte  en  1914  et  celui  dans  lequel  je  vous  retrouvais. 

Mais  cette  impression  premiere,  dont  je  garderai 
tou jours  un  souvenir  emu,  fut  br^ve.  Vous  me  parliez 
de  votre  nouvel  ouvrage,  traitant  de  I'enseignement 
rationnel,  et  developpiez  la  conception  qui  en  forme  la 
base.  A  mesure  que  vous  avanciez,  vous  vous  laissiez 
emporter  par  votre  sujet  et,  redress6,  vous  parliez  avec 
Tardeur  et  le  feu  que  je  vous  ai  tou  jours  connus,  scandant 
vos  phrases  de  gestes  energiques  et  puissants.  Je 
retrouvais  en  vous  le  soldat  d'avant-garde  enthousiaste 
et  fort,  tout  vibrant  de  foi  et  de  conviction,  que  vous 
n'avez  jamais  cess6  d'etre. 

La  nature,  disiez-vous,  est  une  source  feconde  d'en- 
seignement  et  de  m^thode ;   elle  est  la  seule  institutrice 

4G0200 


THE  PRINCIPLES   OF  LANGUAGE -STUDY 

des  noirs.  Ceux-ci,  dans  les  matieres  se  rapportant  k  la 
vie  primitive — et  dont  une  partie  correspond  a  eelles 
que  Ton  enseigne  aux  blancs — sont,  mieux  que  nous, 
naturellement  dans  le  vrai,  dans  le  vrai  exp6rimentaL 
Longuement  vous  developpiez  voire  th^se,  I'appuyant 
de  nombreuses  constatations  de  faits  recoltees  pendant 
vos  longues  annees  d'observation  en  plein  coeur  de 
I'Afrique. 

Je  vous  ai  ecoute  longuement^  et,  en  vous  quittant, 
je  me  suis  retrouve  dans  ce  decor  que  vous  avez  choisi 
pour  y  concentrer  voire  attention  sur  les  probl^mes 
auxquels  vous  avez  voulu  trouver  une  solution  ;  je  me 
suis  retrouve  dans  ceite  Fagne  immense  et  admirable, 
au  milieu  de  ces  bruyeres  aux  colorations  chaudes,  sur 
ceite  terre  aux  vasies  horizons  franges  de  sapinieres,  et, 
seul  en  face  de  la  nature,  de  ceite  source  eternelle  dont 
vous  m'aviez  parle  avec  tani  d'enihousiasme,  j'entendais 
vos  dernier es  paroles  resonner  encore  a  mes  oreilles.  .  .  . 

Le  jour  meme  j'^crivis  le  premier  chapitre  de  ce  livre. 
Vous  y  retrouverez  vos  propres  paroles  et  I'echo  qu'elles 
ont  eveille  en  moi. 

La  nature  doit-elle  etre  noire  guide  ?  Oui,  sans  aucun 
doute.  Doit-elle  etre  noire  seul  guide  ?  Sans  aucun 
douie  encore,  non.  La  nature  doit,  disiez-vous,  etre 
noire  inspirairice  ;  nous  devons,  grace  a  nos  capacites 
acquises,  appliquer  les  le9ons  qu'elle  nous  donne  en 
uiilisant  les  forces  qui  soni  inherentes  a  I'etre  humain. 

Comment  passer  du  principe  a  son  application  ?  Dans 
quelle  mesure  faui-il  puiser  a  la  source  naiurelle,  faire 
agir  rintelligence  humaine  et  se  servir  de  ses  forces 
'  subconscientes  '  ? 

C'^iaii  le  point  de  depart  du  livre  que  voici.  .  .  . 


PREFACE  DfiDICATOIRE 

J'ai  ecrit,  il  y  a  quelques  annees,  un  livre,  The 
Scientific  Study  and  Teaching  of  Languages,  auquel 
j 'avals  donne  la  forme  d'une  etude  soulevant  des  ques- 
tions nouvelles,  sujettes  a  eontroverse  et  montrant 
qu'en  realite  la  science  de  I'etude  des  langues  n'existait 
pas  et  qu'il  etait  grand  temps  de  rassembler  les  materiaux 
et  les  Etudes  permettant  de  lui  donner  un  point  de  depart 
serieux.  Ce  livre  traitait  de  la  nature  du  langage  et  du 
processus  de  I'acquisition  des  langues  ainsi  que  des  divers 
types  d'etudiants  et  de  leurs  buts  respectifs  ;  il  posait 
des  principes  et  presentait  un  '  programme-type  ideal ' 
avec  des  modeles  de  le9ons  et  un  catalogue  complet 
des  methodes  de  travail ;  il  examinait  longuement 
les  programmes  speciaux,  les  fonctions  du  professeur  ;  il 
envisageait  les  problemes  au  point  de  vue  de  I'el^ve  et, 
apres  cet  ensemble  d'etudes,  il  concluait  par  un  appel  a 
I'unite  et  a  la  cooperation  de  tous. 

Cet  appel  n'est  pas  reste  sans  reponse,  et  je  suis  heureux 
d'exprimer  ici  ma  satisfaction  pour  les  avis  et  les  en- 
couragements que  m'a  valus  mon  travail.  II  m'a  gagne 
de  nombreux  amis  et  collaborateurs  ;  il  m'a  mis  en 
contact  avec  des  '  samideani '  (s'il  m'est  permis  de  me 
servir  d'un  des  mots  les  plus  connus  des  langues  arti- 
ficielles)  et  m'a  ainsi  montre  d'ou  pourra  venir  I'aide 
prochaine. 

Je  suis  heureux  du  secours  que  ce  livre  a  apporte  a 
ceux  qui  en  sentaient  le  besoin,  et  c'est  pour  moi  un 
pr^cieux  encouragement  de  savoir  qu'il  en  est  beaucoup 
qui  travaillent  dans  la  voie  qui  vient  d'etre  ouverte. 

Le  livre  que  je  present e  aujourd'hui  ne  couvre  pas  le 
meme  champ  que  le  precedent.  Ce  n'est  ni  une  etude, 
ni  une  serie  de  problemes  avec  leurs  solutions.  C'est  un 
expos^  de  faits,  presumant  que  le  lecteur  admet,  comme  je 
les  ai  admis  moi-meme,  les  principes  fondamentaux  du 

7 


THE  PRINCIPLES   OF  LANGUAGE-STUDY 

langage  et  de  I'etude  des  langues.  Ce  nouvel  ouvrage  se 
borne  a  exposer  les  principes  essentiels  que  sont  tenus 
d'observer  ceux  qui  veulent  enseigner — ou  etudier — 
avec  succes. 

II  est.vrai  que  dans  The  Scientific  Study  and  Teaching 

of  Languages  j'ai  consaere  soixante  pages  a  I'examen  de 

/    certains    principes,    mais    quelques    annees    ont    pass6 

I     depuis  que  j'ai  ecrit  ces  lignes,  et  pas  mal  de  choses  qui 

semblaient  vagues  a  cette  epoque  se  sont  precisees  et 

d^veloppees.     Si  je  n'ai  rien,  ou  peu  de  chose,  a  re- 

trancher   de   ce  travail,    j'ai   par    contre    beaucoup    a 

I     aj  outer  et  a  revoir. 

J'ai  voulu  presenter  la  matiere  de  mon  nouvel  ouvrage 
dans  un  ordre  plus  rigoureux  que  celui  de  I'etude  pre- 
cedente,  bien  qu'en  lui-meme  le  nouveau  livre  soit  moins 
technique  et  que  la  terminologie  en  soit  moins  speciale. 
En  realite,  le  sujet  traite,  comme  tons  les  sujets  d'ailleurs, 
se  presente  plus  simplement  apres  une  periode  de  reflexion 
et  d'incubation,  et  la  forme  actuelle  a  pour  but  pre- 
cisement  de  realiser  une  presentation  populaire. 

Certains,  j'en  suis  sur,  estimeront  que  mon  ouvrage 
n'est  pas  assez  technique.  Plusieurs  amis  m'ont  suggere 
avec  insistance  de  presenter  le  sujet  au  seul  point  de 
vue  de  la  psychologic,  d'autres  de  me  servir  exclusive- 
ment  de  termes  scientifiques.  Mais  je  n'ai  pas  pu  me 
rallier  a  aucune  de  ces  propositions  parce  que  j'ai  du 
tenir  compte  de  ce  que  mes  lecteurs  ne  sont  pas  tous 
verses  dans  "  la  terminologie  psychologique." 

Au  surplus,  je  sens  que  le  sujet  n'est  pas  mur  pour 
subir  une  analyse  detaillee  envisagee  sous  Tangle  de 
la  psychologic  pure.  De  plus  competents  que  moi  la 
tenteront  peut-etre  quand  le  moment  sera  venu.  Pour 
I'instant,  cette  etude  n'apporterait  pas  I'aide  pratique  et 
immediate  que  j'espere  avoir  realisee  dans  les  pages  qui 

8 


PREFACE  DfiDICATOIRE 

suivent,  et  dont  le  besoin  se  fait  sentir  chez  tous  ceux  qui 
s'occupent  de  renseignement  des  langues. 


Je  tiens  a  exprimer  aussi  ma  reconnaissance  a  ceux 
qui  m'ont  aide  dans  la  preparation  de  ce  travail.  La 
collaboration  de  M.  Morris  Ginsberg  (de  University 
College,  Londres)  concernant  "  la  formation  et  I'adapta- 
tion  des  habitudes  "  a  ete  si  precieuse  que  je  ne  puis 
m'empecher  de  la  souligner  tout  specialement ;  j'espere 
qu'il  approuvera  la  presentation  de  ce  sujet  particulier. 
Les  vues  de  M.  H.  Perera  (de  University  College, 
Londres)  sur  la  "  parole  int6rieure  "  m'ont  egalement 
ete  fort  utiles.  Je  dois  des  remerciements  a  Mrs  Powers 
(Kingsmead  Training  Institution  for  Missionary  Candi- 
dates), qui  s'est  chargee  d' examiner  le  manuscrit  phrase 
par  phrase  au  point  de  vue  de  la  clarte  et  de  la 
precision. 

A  present,  mon  cher  Commandant,  permettez  -  moi 
de  conclure :  une  idee  que  vous  avez  exprimee  a  un 
moment  propice  a  d^clanche  chez  moi  un  ordre  de 
pensdes  qui  m'a  conduit  a  ecrire  I'ouvrage  que  je 
pr^sente  aujourd'hui,  et  que  je  suis  heureux  de  vous 
dedier. 

Harold  E.  Palmer 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

Preface  Dedicatoire  5 

Synopsis  13 
I.  Our  Spontaneous  Capacities  for  acquiring 

Speech  83 

II.  Our  Studial  Capacities  and  how  to  use  them  47 

III.  Why  we  must  use  our  Studial  Capacities  52 

IV.  The  Student  and  his  Aim  60 
V.  The  Supreme  Importance  of  the  Elementary 

Stage  68 

^  VI.  The  Principles  of  Language-teaching  75 

VII.  Initial  Preparation  82 

VIII.  Habit-forming  and  Habit-adapting  98 

IX.  Accuracy  106 

X.  Gradation  113 

XI.  Proportion  123 

XII.  Concreteness  129 

XIII.  Interest  186 

XIV.  A  Rational  Order  of  Progression  148 
XV.  The  Multiple  Line  of  Approach  161 

XVI.  *  Memorized     Matter  '     and     *  Constructed 

Matter  '  170 

Index  188 

11 


SYNOPSIS 

1.  We  possess  Natural  or  Spontaneous 
Capacities  for  acquiring  Speech 

In  order  to  become  proficient  in  most  arts,  we  are 
assumed  to  study,  i.e»  to  make  conscious  efforts  per- 
sistently and  perseveringly  ;  we  are  assumed  to  use  our 
intelligence.  There  is,  however,  one  complex  art  in 
which  all  of  us  have  become  proficient  without  any  such 
process  and  without  using  our  intelligence  consciously, 
viz.  the  art  of  speech,  i.e.  of  using  the  spoken  form  of  a 
language  as  actually  used  in  everyday  life.  We  are 
endowed  by  nature  with  capacities  for  assimilating 
speech.  Each  of  us  is  a  living  testimony  to  this  fact,  for 
each  of  us  has  successfully  acquired  that  form  of  our 
mother-tongue  with  which  we  have  been  in  contact. 
These  capacities  are  not  limited  to  the  acquiring  of  our 
mother-tongue,  but  are  also  available  for  one  or  more 
languages  in  addition.  The  young  child  possesses  these 
capacities  in  an  active  state ;  consequently  he  picks  up  a 
second  or  a  third  language  in  the  same  manner  as  he  does 
the  first.  The  adult  possesses  these  same  capacities, 
but  generally  in  a  latent  state ;  by  disuse  he  has 
allowed  them  to  lapse.  If  he  wishes,  he  may  re-educate 
these  powers  and  raise  them  to  the  active  state  ;  he  will 
then  by  this  means  become  as  capable  as  the  child  of 
assimilating  foreign  languages.     Those  adults  who  have 

13 


THE   PRINCIPLES   OF   LANGUAGE-STUDY 

maintained  these  powders  in  an  active  state  are  said  to 
have  a  gift  for  languages. 

2.  Our  Studial  Capacities  and  how  to 

USE   THEM 

In  addition  to  certain  spontaneous  capacities,  we 
possess  what  we  may  term  '  studial '  capacities  for  lan- 
guage-acquisition. These  must  be  utilized  when  w^e 
learn  how  to  read  and  write  a  language,  and  also  when 
we  wish  to  learn  forms  of  language  not  actually  used 
in  everyday  speech  {i.e.  the  literary,  oratorical,  or  cere- 
monious forms).  The  methods  by  which  we  utilize 
these  capacities  are  generally  characterized  by  conscious 
work  (such  as  analysis  and  synthesis)  and  by  conversion, 
i.e.  converting  written  into  spoken  (reading  aloud), 
converting  spoken  into  written  (dictation),  converting 
from  one  language  into  another  (translation),  or  con- 
verting one  grammatical  form  into  another  (conjugation, 
declension,  etc.).  All  exercises  requiring  the  use  of  the 
eyes  and  the  hand  are  of  the  studial  order,  as  are  also 
those  connected  with  accidence  and  derivation. 

Most  of  those  forms  of  work  by  which  we  utilize  or 
adapt  habits  which  we  acquired  previously  while  learning 
some  other  language  (generally  the  mother-tongue)  are 
more  or  less  studial  forms  of  work. 

Most  language-learners  at  the  present  day  are  found 
to  make  an  almost  exclusive  use  of  their  studial  capaci- 
ties, and  in  doing  so  use  methods  which  are  more  or  less 
unnatural. 

3.  Why  we  must  use  our  Studial  Capacities 

We  must  not  conclude  from  the  foregoing  that 
methods  involving  the  use  of  our  capacities  for  study 
are  necessarily  bad,  nor  that  those  based  on  oi 

U 


SYNOPSIS 

taneous  capacities  are  necessarily  always  to  be  used.  In 
certain  cases  and  for  certain  purposes  we  shall  be  forced 
to  use  the  former.  Nature  alone  will  not  teach  us  how 
to  read  or  wTite ;  for  these  purposes  we  must  use  our 
studial  capacities.  We  shall,  however,  refrain  from 
reading-  or  writing  any  given  material  until  we  have 
learnt  to  use  the  spoken  form.  Nature  will  not  teach  us 
how  to  use  forms  of  language  which  are  not  currently 
used  in  everyday  speech  ;  in  order  to  acquire  these  we 
must  have  recourse  to  our  powers  of  study  ;  thus  we  shall 
use  these  powers  when  learning  literary  composition,  the 
language  of  ceremony,  etc.  IVIoreover,  the  studial  powers 
must  be  utilized  for  the  purposes  for  which  a  corrective 
course  is  designed.  What  has  been  badly  assimilated 
must  be  ehminated  consciously ;  bad  habits  can  only  be 
replaced  by  good  habits  through  processes  unknown  to 
the  language-teaching  forces  of  nature.  Even  those 
who  have  not  been  previously  spoiled  by  defective  study 
require  a  certain  amount  of  corrective  work  in  order 
that  they  may  react  against  the  tendency  to  import  into 
the  new  language  some  of  the  characteristic  features  of 
the  previously  acquired  language  or  languages. 

Some  students  have  no  desire  to  use  the  foreign  lan- 
guage, but  merely  wish  to  learn  about  it,  to  know 
something  of  its  structure.  In  such  cases  no  attempt 
whatever  need  be  made  to  develop  or  to  utilize  their 
spontaneous  language-learning  capacities ;  they  may 
work  exclusively  by  the  methods  of  study. 

4.  The  Student  and  his  Aim 

We  cannot  design  a  language  course  until  we  know- 
something  about  the  students  for  whom  the  course  is 
intended,  for  a  programme  of  study  depends  on  the  aim 
or  aims  of  the  students.     All  we  can  say  in  advance  is 

15 


THE  PRINCIPLES   OF  LANGUAGE-STUDY 

that  we  must  endeavour  to  utilize  the  most  appropriate 
means  to  attain  the  desired  end.  A  course  which  is 
suitable  in  one  case  may  prove  unsuitable  in  another. 
Some  students  may  require  only  a  knowledge  of  the 
written  language,  others  are  concerned  with  the  spoken 
language,  others  desire  to  become  conversant  with  both 
aspects.  Some  students  only  require  a  superficial 
knowledge,  while  others  aim  at  a  perfect  knowledge. 
Special  categories  of  learners  (e.g.  clerks,  hotel-keepers, 
tourists,  grammarians)  wish  to  specialize.  The  sole  aim 
of  some  students  is  to  pass  a  given  examination ;  others 
wish  to  become  proficient  as  translators  or  interpreters. 

The  length  of  the  course  or  programme  is  a  most 
important  determining  factor  ;  a  two  months'  course 
will  differ  fundamentally  from  one  which  is  designed  to 
last  two  years  ;  the  former  will  be  a  preparatory  course, 
the  latter  will  be  highly  developed. 

It  will  not  be  possible  for  us  to  design  a  special  course 
for  each  individual,  still  less  to  write  a  special  text-book 
for  him  ;  we  can,  however,  broadly  group  our  students 
into  types,  and  recommend  for  each  type  the  most 
appropriate  forms  of  work.  In  any  case,  the  teacher  is 
bound  to  draw  up  some  sort  of  programme  in  advance 
and  to  divide  this  into  stages  appropriately  graded. 
This  programme  must  not  be  of  the  rigid  type,  the  same 
for  all  requirements  ;  it  should  be  designed  on  an  elastic 
basis  and  should  be  in  accordance  with  known  peda- 
gogical principles. 

5.  The  Supreme  Importance  of  the 
Elementary  Stage 

The  reader  of  this  book  may  notice,  perhaps  wilh 
some  surprise,  how  much  we  have  to  say  concernii:g 

16 


SYNOPSIS 

the  work  of  the  beginner,  and  how  little  we  say  about 
the  more  advanced  work  ;  he  may  be  puzzled  at  the 
amount  of  attention  we  pay  to  (what  he  may  consider) 
crude  elementary  work  compared  with  the  amount  we 
give  to  (what  he  may  consider)  the  more  complex  and 
interesting  work  connected  with  the  higher  stages.  It 
will  therefore  be  useful,  at  this  point,  to  anticipate  what 
will  be  more  fully  dealt  with  under  the  heading  of 
gradation  (Chapter  X),  and  insist  here  already  on  the 
supreme  importance  of  the  elementary  stage. 
I  Language- study  is  essentially  a  habit-forming  process, 
and  the  important  stage  in  habit-forming  is  the  element- 
ary stage.  If  we  do  not  secure  habits  of  accurate 
observation,  reproduction,  and  imitation  during  the 
first  stage,  it  is  doubtful  whether  we  shall  ever  secure 
them  subsequently."  It  is  more  difficult  to  unlearn  a 
thing  than  to  learn  it.  If  the  elementary  stage  is  gone 
through  without  due  regard  to  the  principles  of  study,  the 
student  will  be  caused  to  do  things  which  he  must  sub- 
sequently undo  ;  he  will  acquire  habits  which  will  have 
to  be  eradicated.  If  his  ear-training  is  neglected  during 
the  elementary  stage,  he  will  replace  foreign  sounds  by 
native  ones  and  insert  intrusive  sounds  into  the  words 
of  the  language  he  is  learning  ;  he  will  become  unable  to 
receive  any  but  eye-impressions,  and  so  will  become  the 
dupe  of  unphonetic  orthographies.  If  he  has  not  been 
trained  during  the  elementary .  stage  to  cultivate  his 
powers  of  unconscious  assimilation  and  reproduction,  he 
will  attempt  the  hopeless  task  of  passing  all  the  language- 
matter  through  the  channel  of  full  consciousness.  If 
during  the  elementary  stage  he  forms  the  '  isolating 
habit,'  he  will  not  be  able  to  use  or  to  build  accurate 
sentences.  An  abuse  of  translation  during  the  ele- 
mentary   stage    will    cause   the    student   to   translate 

2  17 


THE  PRINCIPLES   OF  LANGUAGE-STUD 

menially  everything  he  hears,  reads,  says,  or  av 
Bad  habits  of  articulation  will  cause  him  to  use  lan| 
of  an  artificialized  type. 

The  function  of  the  elementary  stage  is  to  inci 
good  habits,  and  once  this  work  is  done  there  is 
or  no  fear  of  the  student  going  astray  in  his  later  worK. 
If  we  take  care  of  the  elementary  stage,  the  advanced 
stage  will  take  care  of  itself. 


6.  The  Principles  of  Language-teaching 

The  art  of  designing  a  language  course  appears  to  be 
in  its  infancy.  Those  arts  which  have  achieved  maturity 
have  gradually  evolved  from  a  number  of  distinct 
primitive  efforts  which,  by  a  process  of  gradual  con- 
vergence towards  each  other,  have  resulted  in  the  ideal 
type.  So  will  it  be  in  the  art  of  composing  language 
courses  :  the  present  diverse  types  will  gradually  be 
replaced  by  more  general  types,  and  in  the  end  the  ideal  " 
type  will  be  evolved.  This  will  come  about  as  a  result 
of  a  system  of  collaboration  in  which  each  worker  will 
profit  by  that  which  has  been  done  in  the  past  and  that 
which  is  being  done  by  other  workers  in  the  present. 
Unsound  methods  will  gradually  be  eliminated  and  will- 
make  room  for  methods  which  are  being  evolved  slowly, 
and  experimentally  and  which  will  pass  "  the  tests  of 
experience.  By  this  time  a  series  of  essential  principles  » 
will  have  been  discovered,  and  these  will  be  recognized 
as  standard  principles  by  all  whose  work  is  to  design 
language  courses. 

The  following  list  would  seem  to   embody  some  of 
these,  and  probably  represents  principles  on  which  there 
is  general  agreement  among  those  who  have  made  a 
study  of  the  subject : 
18 


SYNOPSIS 

(1)  The  initial  preparation  of  the  student  by  the 
training  of  his  spontaneous  capacities  for  assimila'  ing 
spoken  language. 

(2)  The  forming  of  new  and  appropriate  habits  and 
the  utilization  of  previously  formed  habits. 

(3)  Accuracy  in  work  in  order  to  prevent  the  acquiring 
of  bad  habits. 

(4)  Gradation  of  the  work  in  such  a  way  as  to  ensure 
an  ever-increasing  rate  of  pi:ogress. 

(5)  Due  proportion  in  the  treatment  of  the  various 
aspects  and  branches  of  the  subject. 

(6)  The  presentation  of  language-material  in  a  con- 
crete rather  than  in  an  abstract  way. 

(7)  The  securing  and  maintaining  of  the  student's 
interest  in  order  to  accelerate  his  progress. 

(8)  A  logical  order  of  progression  in  accordance  with 
principles  of  speech-psychology. 

(9)  The  approaching  of  the  subject  simulianeously 
from  different  sides  by  means  of  different  and  appropriate 
devices. 

7.  Initial  Preparation 

We  must  realize  that  language-learning  is  an  art,  not  a 
science.  We  may  acquire  proficiency  in  an  art  in  two 
ways  :  by  learning  the  theory,  or  by  a  process  of  imitation. 
This  latter  process  is  often  termed  the  method  of  trial 
and  error,  but  as  the  term  may  be  misinterpreted  it  is 
better  to  consider  it  as  the  method  of  practice.  The 
method  of  practice  is  a  natural  one,  the  method  of 
theory  is  not.  We  may  acquire  proficiency  in  two  ways  : 
by  forming  appropriate  new  habits,  or  by  utilizing  and 
adapting  appropriate  old  habits  (i.e.  habits  already 
acquired).  The  natural  process  is  the  former,  the  latter 
being  more  or  less  artificial.   Language-study  is  essentially 

19 


THE  PRINCIPLES   OF  LANGUAGE-STUDY 

a  habit-forming  process,  so  we  must  learn  to  form 
habits.  By  the  natural  or  spontaneous  method  we  learn 
unconsciously  ;  we  must  therefore  train  ourselves  or  our 
students  to  form  habits  unconsciously. 

The  adult  whose  natural  capacities  for  unconscious 
habit-forming  have  been  dormant  may  reawaken  them 
by  means  of  appropriate  exercises.     These  are  notably  : 

(a)  Ear-training  exercises,  by  means  of  which  he  may 
learn  to  perceive  correctly  what  he  hears. 

(b)  Articulation  exercises,  by  means  of  which  he  may 
cause  his  vocal  organs  to  make  the  right  sort  of  muscular 
efforts. 

(c)  Exercises  in  mimicry,  by  means  of  which  he  will 
become  able  to  imitate  and  reproduce  successfully  any 
word  or  string  of  words  uttered  by  the  native  whose 
speech  serves  as  model. 

(The  combination  of  the  three  foregoing  types  of 
exercise  will  result  in  the  capacity  for  reproducing  at 
first  hearing  a  string  of  syllables,  such  as  a  sentence. 
The  student  will  thereby  become  enabled  to  memorize 
unconsciously  the  form  of  speech.) 

{d)  Exercises  in  immediate  comprehension,  by  means 
of  which  he  will  come  to  grasp  without  mental  trans- 
lation or  analysis  the  general  sense  of  what  he  hears. 

(e)  Exercises  in  forming  the  right  associations  between 
words  and  their  meanings,  by  means  of  which  he  will 
become  able  to  express  his  thoughts. 

The  combination  of  these  five  types  of  exercise  will 
develop  the  student's  capacity  to  use  spoken  language. 

8.  Habit-forming  and  Habit-adapting 

Language- study  is  essentially  a  habit-forming  pl-ocess. 
We  speak  and  understand  automatically  as  the  result  of 
perfectly  formed  habits.  No  foreign  word  or  sentence 
20 


SYNOPSIS 

is  really  '  known '  until  the  student  can  produce  it 
automatically  (Le.  without  hesitation  or  conscious 
calculation).  No  one  can  understand  by  any  process 
of  calculation  {e.g.  translation  or  analysis)  the  language 
as  spoken  normally  by  the  native.  Few  people  (if  any) 
have  ever  succeeded  in  speaking  the  language  by  a 
series  of  mental  gymnastics ;  our  progress  is  to  be 
measured  only  by  the  quantity  of  language-material 
which  we  can  use  automatically.  Adult  students 
generally  dislike  the  work  of  acquiring  new  habits,  and 
seek  to  replace  it  by  forms  of  study  dependent  upon 
the,  intellect,  striving  to  justify  their  abstention  from 
mechanical  work  on  educational  grounds.  This  fear 
of  tediousness  is  really  groundless ;  automatism  is 
certainly  acquired  by  repetition,  but  this  need  not  be  of 
the  monotonous,  parrot-like  type,  for  there  exist  many 
psychologically  sound  repetition  devices  and  varied  drills 
intended  to  ensure  automatism  and  interest. 

Most  of  the  time  spent  by  the  teacher  in  demonstrating 
why  a  foreign  sentence  is  constructed  in  a  particular 
w^ay  is  time  wasted  ;  it  is  generally  enough  for  the  student 
to  learn  to  do  things  without  learning  why  he  must  do 
them  (due  exception  being  made  in  special  cases,  notably 
that  of  corrective  courses). 

The  student  should  not  only  be  caused  to  form  new 
habits  ;  he  should  also  be  helped,  when  expedient,  to 
utilize  some  of  his  existing  habits  ;  it  is  even  part  of  the 
teacher's  duties  to  aid  the  student  to  select  from  his 
previously  acquired  habits  those  which  are  likely  to  be  of 
service  to  him. 

9.  Accuracy 

Accuracy  means  conformity  with  a  given  model  or 
standard,  whatever  that  model  or  standard  may  happen 

21 


THE  PRINCIPLES   OF  LANGUAGE -STUDY 

to  be.  If  we  choose  to  take  colloquial  French  or  collo- 
quial English  as  our  standard,  the  forms  pertaining  to 
classical  French  or  English  (i,e.  traditionally  correct 
forms)  are  to  be  rejected  as  inaccurate.  There  are  two 
types  of  inaccuracy  :  that  in  which  a  colloquial  form  is 
replaced  by  a  classical  form  and  vice  versa,  and  that  in 
which  a  native  form  is  replaced  by  a  pidgin  form.  In 
both  cases  the  teacher's  duty  is  to  react  against  the 
tendency  towards  inaccuracy. 

(^  Appropriate  drills  and  exercises  exist  which  ensure 
accuracy  in  soimds,  stress,  intonation,  fluency,  spelling, 
sentence  -  building  and  -compounding,  inflexions,  and 
meanings. 

The  principle  of  accuracy  requires  that  the  student  shall 
have  no  opportunities  for  making  mistakes  until  he  has 
arrived  at  the  stage  at  which  accurate  work  is  reasonably  to  he 
expected. 

If  we  compel  a  student  to  utter  foreign  words  before 
he  has  learnt  how  to  make  the  requisite  foreign  sounds, 
if  we  compel  him  to  wTite  a  composition  in  a  foreign 
language  before  he  has  become  reasonably  proficient  in 
sentence-building,  or  if  we  compel  him  to  talk  to  us  in 
the  foreign  language  before  he  has  done  the  necessary 
drill-work,  we  are  compelling  him  to  use  the  pidgin 
form  of  the  language. 

In  addition  to  specific  exercises  and  devices  which 
ensure  accuracy  in  special  points,  we  should  observe 
certain  general  rules  which  will  be  described  and  treated 
under  the  heading  of  gradation. 

10.  Gradation 

Gradation  means  passing  from  the  known  to  the  un- 
known by  easy  stages,  each  of  which  serves  as  a  prepara- 

22 


SYNOPSIS 

tion  for  the  next.  If  a  course  or  a  lesson  is  insufficiently 
graded,  or  graded  on  a  wrong  basis,  the  student's  work 
will  be  marked  by  an  excessive  degree  of  inaccuracy. 
If  a  course  is  well  graded,  the  student's  rate  of  progress 
will  increase  in  proportion  as  he  advances. 

In  the  ideally  graded  course  the  student  is  caused 
to  assimilate  perfectly  a  relatively  small  but  exceed- 
ingly important  vocabulary ;  when  perfectly  assimilated, 
this  nucleus  will  develop  and  grow  in  the  manner  of  a 
snowball. 

Care  should  be  taken  to  distinguish  between  false 
grading  and  sound  grading.  The  following  applications 
of  this  principle  are  psychologically  sound  : 

(a)  Ears  before  Eyes. — ^The  student  to  be  given  ample 
opportunities,  at  appropriate  intervals,  of  hearing  a 
sound,  a  word,  or  a  group  of  words  before  seeing  them 
in  their  written  form  (phonetic  or  other). 

(b)  Reception  before  Reproduction. — The  student  to  be 
given  ample  opportunities,  with  appropriate  intervals,  of 
hearing  a  sound  or  combination  of  sounds,  a  word,  or  a 
group  of  words  before  being  called  upon  to  imitate  what 
he  hears. 

(c)  Oral  Repetition  before  Reading. — The  student  to  be 
given  ample  opportunities  of  repeating  matter  after  the 
teacher  before  being  called  upon  to  read  the  same  matter. 

(d)  Immediate  Memory  before  Prolonged  Memory. — ^The 
student  should  not  be  required  to  reproduce  matter  heard 
a  long  time  previously  until  he  has  become  proficient  in 
reproducing  what  he  has  just  heard. 

(e)  Chorus-work  before  Individual^ ork. — In  the  case  of 
classes,  new  material  should  be  repeated  by  the  whole 
of  the  students  together  before  each  student  is  called 
upon  to  repeat  individually.  This  will  tend  to  ensure 
confidence. 

23 


THE  PRINCIPLES   OF  LANGUAGE -STUDY 

(/)  Drill-work  before  Free  Work, — ^The  student  should 
not  be  given  opportunities  for  free  conversation,  free 
composition,  or  free  translation  until  he  has  acquired 
a  reasonable  proficiency  in  the  corresponding  forms  of 
drill-work. 

Each  individual  item  in  the  teaching  should  be  graded, 
and  in  addition  the  whole  course  may  be  graded  by 
dividing  it  into  appropriate  stages  or  phases,  which  will 
succeed  each  other  en  Schelon. 


11.  Proportion 

The  ultimate  aim  of  most  students  is  fourfold : 

{a)  To  understand  what  is  said  in  the  foreign  language 

when  it  is  spoken  rapidly  by  natives. 

{h)  To  speak  the  foreign  language  in  the  manner  of 

natives. 

(c)  To  understand  the  language  as  written  by  natives. 

(d)  To  write  the  language  in  the  manner  of  natives. 
We  observe  the  principle  of  proportion  when  we  pay 

the  right  amount  of  attention  to  each  of  these  four  aspects, 
without  exaggerating  the  importance  of  any  of  them. 

There  are  five  chief  branches  of  practical  linguistics  : 

{a)  Phonetics,  which  teaches  us  to  recognize  and  to 
reproduce  sounds  and  tones. 

ih)  Orthography,  which  teaches  us  to  spell  what  we 
have  already  learnt  by  ear. 

(c)  Accidence  and  etymology,  which  teaches  us  the 
nature  of  inflected  forms  and  derivatives,  and  also  how 
to  use  them. 

{d)  Syntax  and  analysis,  which  teaches  us  how  to 
build  up  sentences  from  their  components. 

(e)  Semantics,  which  teaches  us  the  meanings  of  words 
and  forms. 

24 


SYNOPSIS 

We  observe  the  principle  of  proportion  when  we  pay 
the  right  amount  of  attention  to  each  of  these  five 
branches,  without  exaggerating  the  importance  of  any 
of  them. 

In  choosing  the  units  of  our  vocabulary  we  may  be 
guided  by  several  considerations,  such  as  intrinsic 
utility,  sentence-forming  utility,  grammatical  function, 
regularity,  facility,  concreteness,  or  completeness.  We 
observe  the  principle  of  proportion  when  we  select 
the  material  of  our  vocabularies  in  such  a  way  that 
due  attention  is  paid  to  all  such  desiderata,  and  without 
exaggerating  the  importance  of  any  of  them. 

We  also  observe  the  principle  of  proportion  when  we 
give  the  right  amount  of  drill-work  or  free  work,  of 
translation-work  or  '  direct '  work,  of  intensive  reading 
or  extensive  reading.  A  well-proportioned  course,  like  a 
well-graded  course,  ensures  a  steady  and  ever-increasing 
rate  of  progress. 

12.  Concreteness 

We  are  enjoined  by  the  principle  of  concreteness  to 
teach  more  by  example  than  by  precept.  When  we 
give  explanations  we  should  illustrate  these  by  striking 
and  vivid  examples  embodying  the  point  of  theory 
which  is  the  subject  of  our  explanation.  One  example 
is  generally  not  enough  ;  it  is  by  furnishing  several 
examples  bearing  on  the  same  point  that  we  cause  the 
student  to  grasp  that  which  is  common  to  them  all. 
/  But  this  is  not  enough  :  the  examples  themselves  may 
''  vary  in  concreteness  ;  therefore  we  should  select  for  our 
purpose  those  which  demonstrate  in  the  clearest  possible 
way  the  point  we  are  teaching  and  which  tend  to  form 
the  closest  semantic  associations.  We  should  utilize 
as  far  as  possible  the  actual  environment  of  the  student  : 

25 


THE  PRINCIPLES   OF  LANGUAGE-STUDY 

the  grammar  of  the  noun  is  best  understood  when  we 
talk  of  books,  pencils,  and  chairs  ;  the  grammar  of  the 
verb  is  best  grasped  when  we  choose  as  examples  verbs 
which  can  be  '  acted  '  ;  black,  white,  round,  square  are 
more  concrete  adjectives  than  rich,  poor,  idle,  diligent 

There  are  four  ways  of  teaching  the  meanings  of  words 
or  forms  : 

(1)  By  immediate  association,  as  when  we  point  to  the 
object  represented  by  a  noun. 

(2)  By  translation,  as  when  we  give  the  student  the 
nearest  native  equivalent. 

(S)  By  definition,  as  when  we  describe  the  unit  by 
means  of  a  synonymous  expression. 

(4>)  By  context,  as  when  we  embody  the  word  or 
expression  in  a  sentence  which  will  make  its  meaning 
clear. 

These  four  manners  are  given  here  in  what  is  generally 
their  order  of  concreteness  ;  it  is  interesting  to  note 
in  this  connexion  that  translation  is  not  nearly  so 
'  indirect '  or  '  unconcrete  '  as  the  extreme  '  direct 
methodists  '  have  led  us  to  suppose. 

It  is  for  the  teacher  to  judge  under  what  conditions 
each  of  these  four  manners  of  teaching  meanings  may  be 
appropriately  used. 

13.  Interest 

No  work  is  likely  to  be  successfully  accomplished  if  the 
student  is  not  interested  in  what  he  is  doing,  but  in  our 
efforts  to  interest  the  pupil  we  must  take  care  that  the 
quality  of  the  teaching  does  not  suffer.  Habit-forming 
work  has  the  reputation  of  being  dull  and  tedious.  The 
remedy,  however,  would  not  be  to  abandon  it  in  favour 
of  work  which  in  itself  is  or  seems  more  interesting 
(such  as  reading,  composition,  and  translation  exercises), 

26 


SYNOPSIS 

for  by  so  doing  we  should  merely  be  leaving  undone  work 
which  must  be  done.  The  true  remedy  is  to  devise  a 
number  of  varied  and  appropriate  exercises  in  order  to 
make  the  habit-forming  work  itself  interesting. 

The  most  ingenious  and  interesting  arithmetical 
problems  alone  will  not  assist  the  student  in  memorizing 
the  multiplication  table,  and  the  most  ingenious  and 
interesting  sentence-building  devices  alone  will  not  cause 
the  student  to  obtain  the  necessary  automatic  command 
of  the  fundamental  material  of  the  language. 

There  are  notably  six  factors  making  for  interest  (and 
the  observing  of  these  will  not  in  any  appreciable  degree 
violate  the  eight  other  principles  involved),  viz.  : 

(1)  The  Elimination  of  Bewilderment. — Difficulty  is  one 
thing :  bewilderment  is  another.  The  student  must, 
in  the  ordinary  course  of  events,  be  confronted  with 
difficulties,  but  he  should  never  be  faced  with  hopeless 
puzzles.  Rational  explanations  and  good  grading  will 
eliminate  bewilderment  and,  in  so  doing,  will  tend  to 
make  the  course  interesting. 

(2)  The  Sense  of  Progress  achieved. — When  the  student 
feels  that  he  is  making  progress,  he  will  rarely  fail  to  be 
interested  in  his  work. 

(3)  Competition, — The  spirit  of  emulation  adds  zest 
to  all  study. 

(4)  Game-like  Exercises. — Many  forms  of  exercise  so 
resemble  games  of  skill  that  they  are  often  considered  as 
interesting  as  chess  and  similar  pastimes. 

(5)  The  Relation  between  Teacher  and  Student. — The 
right  attitude  of  the  teacher  towards  his  pupils  will  con- 
tribute largely  towards  the  interest  taken  in  the  work. 

(6)  Variety. — Change  of  work  generally  adds  interest  : 
an  alternation  of  diflFerent  sorts  of  monotonous  work 
makes    the    whole    work    less    monotonous.     Spells    of 

27 


THE   PRINCIPLES   OF  LANGUAGE -STUDY 

drill-work,    however,    should   be   relieved   by   intervals 
devoted  to  work  of  a  less  monotonous  character. 


14.  A  Rational  Order  of  Progression 

Apart  from  all  questions  of  grading,  we  may  observe 
in  most  of  the  branches  of  language-work  different 
orders  of  progression.  We  may  proceed  from  the  spoken 
to  the  written  or  from  the  written  to  the  spoken  :  we 
may  start  with  ear-training  and  articulation  exercises  or 
leave  them  to  a  later  stage  :  we  may  treat  intonation 
as  a  fundamental  or  leave  it  to  the  final  stage  :  we  may 
proceed  from  the  sentence  to  the  word -or  vice  versa  : 
irregularities  may  be  included  or  excluded  during  the 
first  part  of  the  course  :  we  may  proceed  from  rapid 
and  fluent  to  slow  utterance  or  vice  versa. 

Modern  pedagogy  tends  to  favour  the  former  of  each 
of  these  alternatives  :  whereas  the  teachers  of  the  past 
generations  generally  pronounced  in  favour  of  the  latter. 
The  ancient  school  said  :  First  learn  how  to  form  words, 
then  learn  how  to  form  sentences,  then  pay  attention 
to  the  '  idiomatic  '  phenomena,  and  lastly  learn  how  to 
pronounce  and  to  speak.  The  modern  school  says  : 
First  learn  to  form  sounds,  then  memorize  sentences,  then 
learn  systematically  how  to  form  sentences,  and  lastly 
learn  how  to  form  words. 

The  two  orders  of  progression,  it  wall  be  seen,  are 
almost  directly  opposite  to  each  other.  We  who  have 
carefully  examined  and  analysed  the  arguments  on  either 
side  are  forced  to  conclude  that  the  modern  order  is 
the  rational  order,  and  psychologists  will  confirm  our 
conclusion.  The  old  order  stands  for  cramming  and  for 
an  erratic  and  weak  curve  of  progress  :  the  modern  order 
stands  for  results  which  are  both  immediate  and  of  a 

28 


SYNOPSIS 

permanent    nature.     The    old   order  teaches  us  much 
about  the  language  and  its  theory  :    the  modern  order ' 
teaches  us  how  to  use  a  language. 

15.  The  Multiple  Line  of  Approach 

This  ninth  and  last  of  the  essential  principles  of 
language-study  welds  the  eight  others  into  a  consistent 
whole  ;  it  harmonizes  any  seeming  contradictions  and 
enables  us  to  observe  in  a  perfectly  rational  manner  all  of 
the  precepts  set  forth  under  their  respective  headings  ; 
it  answers  once  for  all  most  of  those  perplexing  ques- 
tions which  have  engaged  the  attention  of  so  many 
language-teachers  and  controversiahsts  for  such  a  long 
time. 

If  this  principle  is  in  contradiction  to  the  spirit  of 
partisanship,  it  is  equally  opposed  to  the  spirit  of  com- 
promise ;  it  suggests  a  third  and  better  course,  that 
of  accepting  any  two  or  more  rival  expedients  and  of 
embodying  them  boldly  as  separate  items  in  the  pro- 
gramme, in  order  that  each  may  fulfil  its  function  in  a 
well-proportioned  and  well- organized  whole. 

The  term  '  multiple  line  of  approach  '  implies  that  we 
are  to  proceed  simultaneously  from  many  different 
starting-points  towards  one  and  the  same  end ;  we 
use  each  and  every  method,  process,  exercise,  drill,  or 
device  which  may  further  us  in  our  immediate  purpose 
and  bring  us  nearer  to  our  ultimate  goal ;  we  adopt 
every  good  idea  and  leave  the  door  open  for  all  future 
developments  ;  we  rfeject  nothing  except  useless  and 
harmful  forms  of  work.  The  multiple  line  of  approach 
embodies  the  eclectic  principle  (using  the  term  in  its 
general  and  favourable  sense),  for  it  enjoins  us  to  select 
judiciously  and  without  prejudice  all  that  is  likely  to 

29 


THE   PRINCIPLES   OF  LANGUAGE-STUDY 

help  us  in  our  work.  Whether  our  purpose  is  the  com- 
plete mastery  of  the  language  in  all  its  aspects  and 
branches,  or  whether  our  purpose  is  a  more  special  one, 
the  principle  holds  good  :  we  adopt  the  best  and  most 
appropriate  means  towards  the  required  end. 


16.  '  Memorized  Matter  '  and  '  Constructed 
Matter  ' 

When  more  is  known  about  speech-psychology  and 
the  ultimate  processes  of  language-study,  it  will  be 
possible  to  embody  as  one  of  the  fundamental  principles 
the  following  considerations  : 

The  whole  of  our  speech-material  is  possessed  by 
us  either  as  '  memorized  matter  '  or  as  '  constructed 
matter.' 

Memorized  matter  includes  everything  which  we  have 
memorized  integi-ally,  whether  syllables,  words,  word- 
groups,  sentences,  or  whole  passages. 

Constructed  matter  includes  everything  not  so  memor- 
ized, i.e.  matter  which  we  compose  as  we  go  on,  matter 
which  we  build  up  unit  by  unit  from  our  stock  of  memor- 
ized matter  while  we  are  speaking  or  writing. 

There  are  three  manners  of  producing  constructed 
matter  from  memorized  matter  ;  we  may  term  these 
respectively  grammatical  construction,  ergonic  construction, 
and  conversion. 

Grammatical  Construction.  —  In  this  process,  our 
memorized  matter  consists  of  '  dictionary  words  '  {i.e. 
uninflected  and  unmodified  root-like  words).  By  learn- 
ing the  theories  of  accidence,  syntax,  derivation,  and 
composition  we  become  (or  hope  to  become)  able  to 
produce  constructed  matter  at  will. 

Ergonic  Construction. — In  this  process,  our  memorized 
30 


SYNOPSIS 

matter  consists  of  two  elements  :  more  or  less  complete 
sentences  and  '  working  words '  (units  of  speech  ready 
inflected,  ready  modified,  ready  derived,  or  ready 
compounded),  which  units  may  be  termed  '  ergons. '^^ 
By  means  of  appropriate  tables  and  drill-like  forms  of 
work,  from  this  memorized  matter  we  produce  more  or 
less  spontaneously  the  requisite  constructed  matter. 

Conversion. — In  this  process,  our  memorized  matter 
consists  of  classified  series  of  sentences  which  are  to  be 
converted  into  other  forms  by  means  of  appropriate 
exercises  of  various  kinds. 

In  the  opinion  of  many,  the  greatest  evil  in  present-day 
methods  lies  in  the  fact  that  an  almost  exclusive  use  is 
made  of  the  first  of  these  processes  as  a  method  of 
producing  constructed  matter.  Instead  of  concentrating 
their  efforts  on  condemning  this  process  as  a  vicious  and 
unnatural  one,  the  reformers  of  thirty  years  ago  merely 
advocated  what  has  been  termed  the  '  direct  method,' 
the  chief  features  of  which  are  the  abolition  of  translation 
exercises  and  of  the  use  of  the  mother-tongue  as  a  vehicle 
of  instruction. 


'- 31 


THE    PRINCIPLES    OF 
LANGUAGE-STUDY 


CHAPTER  I 

OUR  SPONTANEOUS  CAPACITIES  FOR 
ACQUIRING  SPEECH 

WHAT  do  we  do  in  order  to  become  skilful  in  the 
exercise  of  an  art  ?  If  we  wish  to  become 
proficient  in  performing  an  unlimited  series 
of  complicated  acts,  what  course  do  we  adopt  in  order 
to  obtain  such  proficiency  ?  The  first  answer  which 
suggests  itself  is  to  the  effect  that  such  skill  or  pro- 
ficiency is  acquired  by  a  process  called  study  or  learning. 
We  learn  to  do  it ;  we  study  the  art ;  we  follow  a  course 
and  all  that  the  course  implies  ;  we  attend  lectures,  we 
take  lessons,  we  read  the  text-book  containing  the 
principles  (rudimentary  or  otherwise)  which  embody  the 
precepts  relating  to  that  art,  we  perform  exercises  ;  in 
short,  we  become  students.  Very  well ;  let  us  accept 
the  answer  for  what  it  is  worth  and  proceed  to  formulate 
a  series  of  supplementary  questions  :  What  are  the 
qualities  which  mark  the  successful  student  ?  What 
sort  of  people  are  Kkely  to  study  with  success  ?  Of  what 
people  can  we  predict  failure  or  incapacity  for  making 
progress  ?  Most  people  will  answer :  The  student 
must  possess  intelligence,  assiduity,  and  perseverance  ; 
if~at~  tlie  same  time  he  should  be  'gifted,'  his  pro- 
gress will  be  much  greater   than  the  progress  of  one 

3  33 


THE  PRINCIPLES  OF  LANGUAGE-STUDY 

who  possesses  no  '  natural  talents  '  for  learning  the 
art  in  question. 

This  answer,  on  the  face  of  it,  seems  a  reasonable  one 
and  a  right  one  ;  it  gives  us  the  impression  of  being  in 
accordance  with  the  traditions  and  maxims  of  the  peda- 
gogic world,  and  with  our  experience,  either  as  teachers 
or  as  learners.  We  think  of  our  efforts  (successful  or 
unsuccessful)  to  learn  shorthand,  piano-playing,  violin- 
playing,  singing,  chess,  typewriting,  dancing,  drawing, 
painting,  modelling,  carpentering,  and  a  host  of 
similar  subjects;  we  remember  the  intensive  actsoi 
analysis  and  synthesis,  the  efforts  of  attention,  the 
strain  of  comprehending,  the  striving  to  retain  ;  we 
remember  the  hours  of  solid  labour,  the  exercises, 
the  drills,  the  spade-work ;  we  consider  the  period 
of  time  covered  by  these  continuous  efforts,  and  we 
realize  the  cost  at  which  we  have  acquired  our  present 
proficiency. 

And  yet  there  exists  an  art,  we  are  told,  in  which  every 
one  of  us  has  become  proficient,  an  art  in  which  every 
man,  woman,  and  child  throughout  the  world  is  a 
skilful  adept,  an  art  which  has  been  acquired  without 
any  process  resembling  study,  without  lectures  or 
lessons  or  text-books  or  theory,  without  the  exercise 
of  our  poYv^ers  of  conscious  or  critical  reflection,  or 
analysis,  or  synthesis,  or  generalization,  without  the 
giving  of  our  conscious  attention,  without  deliberate 
effort  or  striving. 

This  art,  w^e  are  told,  requires  no  intelligence  on  the 
part  of  the  one  who  is  learning  it ;  on  the  contrary,  the 
least  intelligent  often  prove  to  be  among  the  most 
successful  adepts,  notably  very  young  children,  idiots,  or 
barbarians  of  the  lowest  scale. 

This  statement  seems  so  strange  on  the  face  of  it,  so 

34 


CAPACITIES   FOR  ACQUIRING  SPEECH 

paradoxical  and  so  contrary  to  our  preconceived  notions 
concerning  the  acquiring  of  knowledge,  that  we  immedi- 
ately suspect  some  '  catch  ' ;  we  are  inclined  to  treat  as 
a  joker  the  one  who  has  so  graveljT^ made  the  statement. 
The  '  art '  in  question  is  probably  something  of  an 
absurdly  rudimentary  character,  something  of  such  a 
simple  nature  that  it  neither  admits  of  analysis  or 
synthesis  nor  requires  any  form  of  logical  or  co-ordinated 
thought.  But  no,  the  art  in  question  is  one  involving 
at  least  three  distinct  sciences,  each  of  w^hich  is  so 
complex  and  so  vast  that  the  learned  world  has  not  yet 
succeeded  in  unravelling  it  or  in  sounding  its  depths. 

Convinced  by  now  that  we  are  the  object  of  some 
form  of  ingenious  witticism,  we  ask :  What,  then,  is 
this  strange  art  in  which  the  dunce  excels,  this  art 
which  requires  of  its  adepts  neither  brains,  industry, 
nor  patience  ? 

The  answer  is  :  The  art  of  using  the  spoken  and  every- 
day form  of  any  given  language.  Show  me  the  child  of 
three  years  of  age,  the  madman,  or  the  savage,  who  is 
not  an  expert  at  it  I 

Let   us   make   sure   that   we   have   understood   this 
answer,  in  order  that  we  may  not  misinterpret  it,  in 
order  that  we  may  not  read  into  it  a  meaning  which  is 
not  there.     In  the  first  place,  there  is  no  question  here 
of  reading  or  writing  the  language,  but  of  understanding 
what  is  said,  and  of  expressing  what  we  wish  to  say  by  , 
speaking ;  and  the  art  in  question  has  nothing  to  do  with  \ 
alphabets,  with  letters,  with  spelling,  with  calligraphy,  T 
which  are  artificial  developments  deliberately  invented 
by  man.     Nor  is  there  any  question  of  literary  com- 
position in  prose  or  poetry  ;  we  are  not  dealing  with  any 
aesthetic  form,  but  merely  with  the  '  everyday  '  form, 
the  colloquial  form,  the  sort  of  speech  we  use  on  ordinary 

85 


THE  PRINCIPLES  OF  LANGUAGE-STUDY 

occasions  in  order  to  express  our  usual  thoughts.  Let 
there  be  no  mistake  on  this  point :  the  higher  forms 
of  language,  the  artistic  developments,  eloquence  or 
literature,  may  interest  us,  may  interest  us  intensely, 
but  the  particular  art  of  which  we  are  now  speaking 
is  far  removed  from  these  heights  ;  we  are  consider- 
ing language  as  manifested  by  the  normal  colloquial 
form  as  used  by  the  average  speaker  in  ordinary 
circumstances. 

Now  there  is  no  doubt  w^hatever  that  proficiency  in 
this  particular  sort  of  human  activity  is  possessed  by 
every  human  being  who  is  not  congenitally  deaf  or  dumb  ; 
we  are  all  able  to  say  what  we  want  to  say,  we  are  all 
able  to  understand  what  is  said  to  us  provided  that  the 
communication  concerns  things  which  are  within  the 
limits  of  our  knowledge.  We  have  acquired  this  pro- 
ficiency not  by  a  course  of  study  as  we  understand  the 
term  in  its  ordinary  use  ;  we  have  not  learnt  it  as  a 
result  of  lectures  or  lessons ;  it  has  not  come  as  a  con- 
sequence of  deliberate  effort  and  concentration.  Some 
of  us,  in  exceptional  circumstances,  may  have  availed 
ourselves  of  our  intelligence;  but  in  general  our  in- 
telligence, our  reasoning  powers,  our  capacities  for 
deduction,  for  analysis  and  synthesis,  have  counted  for 
nothing  in  the  process. 

Might  we  not  then  call  it  a  '  gift '  ?  Did  we  not 
mention  specifically  that  those  who  have  a  gift  for  a 
particular  art  can  to  a  certain  extent  dispense  with  the 
qualities  of  intelligence,  assiduity,  perseverance  ?  There 
is  no  objection  against  using  the  term  '  gift,'  provided 
that  it  is  clear  to  our  minds  that  everybody  possesses 
the  gift  in  question.  Usually,  however,  we  understand 
by  '  gift '  something  '  given  '  to  certain  individuals  only ; 
consequently  we  are  not  in  the  habit  of  speaking  about 

36 


CAPACITIES  FOR  ACQUIRING  SPEECH 

the  gift  of  sight,  of  hearing,  or  of  locomotion.     It  would 
be  safer  to  avoid  the  term  and  to  speak  rather  of  our 
natural,  spontaneous,  and  universal  capacity  for  using    y 
spoken  language. 

But  are  we  right  as  to  our  facts  ?  Is  it  true  that  we 
acquire  speech  by  some  capacity  other  than  our  intelli- 
gence, our  reasoning  powers  ?  Let  our  answer  be  based 
on  objective  and  easily  proven  evidence.  A  child  of  two 
or  three  years  of  age  can  use  the  spoken  language 
appropriate  to  his  age,  but  what  does  that  child  know  of 
reasoning  ?  And  what  is  its  standard  of  intelligence  ? 
Not  enough  to  cause  it  to  realize  or  understand  that  two 
and  two  make  four.  And  yet  that  child  observes  with 
a  marvellous  degree  of  accuracy  most  of  the  com- 
plicated laws  governing  his  mother-tongue.  And  the  {\mJ^ 
savage.  By  definition  he  is  unintelligent,  he  has  nevev^M^^ 
learnt  to  think  logically,  he  has  no  power  of  abstraction, 
he  is  probably  unaware  that  such  a  thing  as  language 
exists ;  but  he  will  faithfully  observe  to  the  finest 
details  the  complexities  (phonetic,  grammatical,  and 
semantic)  of  his  '  savage  '  language.  He  will  use  the 
right  vowel  or  tone  in  the  right  place ;  he  will  not  con- 
fuse any  of  the  dozen  or  so  genders  with  which  his 
language  is  endowed  ;  a  '  savage  '  language  (with  an  ' 
accidence  so  rich  that  Latin  is  by  comparison  a  language 
of  simple  structure)  will  to  him  be  an  instrument  on 
which  he  plays  in  the  manner  of  an  artist,  a  master  :  and 
we  are  speaking  of  a  savage,  mark  you,  whose  intelligence 
is  of  so  low  an  order  that  for  him  that  which  is  not 
concrete  has  no  existence  ! 

In  English  we  have  a  tone-system  so  complicated  that   > 
no  one  has  so  far  discovered  its  laws,  but  little  English 
children  observe  each  nicety  of  tone  with  marvellous 
precision  ;  a  learned  specialist  in  '  tonetics  '  (or  whatever 

87 


THE  PRINCIPLES   OF  LANGUAGE-STUDY 

the  science  of  tones  will  come  to  be  called)  may  make  an 
error,  but  the  little  child  will  not.  The  grammatical 
system  of  the  Bantu  languages  depends  largely  on 
fine  shades  of  intonation ;  the  dropping  of  the  voice  a 
semitone  at  certain  points  in  the  sentence,  for  instance, 
is  an  essential  feature  of  their  syntax,  while  the 
highly  complex  system  of  tone-mutation  serves  as 
a  basis  of  their  conjugation  and  declension ;  but 
no  Bechuana  or  Matabele  native,  illiterate  as  he  may 
be,  will  ever  commit  the  slightest  error  in  the  use  of 
his  tones. 

When,  therefore,  we  find  that  a  person  has  be- 
come expert  in  a  difficult  and  complex  subject,  the 
theory  of  which  has  not  yet  been  worked  out,  nor 
yet  been  discovered,  it  is  manifest  that  his  expert- 
ness  has  been  acquired  otherwise  than  by  the  study 
of  the  theory. 

Let  us  furthermore  examine  what  passes  in  our  mind 
when  we  are  speaking  our  own  language,  and  endeavour 
to  ascertain  whether  we  form  our  sentences  in  uncon- 
scious obedience  to  some  rules  unknown  to  us,  or  whether 
we  are  consciously  applying  rules  we  have  learnt.  Do 
you  say  /  go  always  there  or  /  always  go  there  ?  You 
certainly  use  the  latter  form.  Why  ?  Have  you  ever 
been  told  t  hat  a  certain  class  of  adverbs  (among  them  the 
word  always)  is  placed  before  and  not  after  the  verb  ? 
Have  you  been  told  that  there  are  twenty-three  ex- 
ceptions to  the  rule,  and  have  you  ever  learnt  these 
exceptions  ?  It  is  most  probable  that  you  have  never 
had  your  attention  called  to  the  rule  or  to  its  exceptions. 
Yovi  put  always  in  front  of  all  verbs  except  the  twenty- 
three  exceptional  verb-forms  for  the  very  reason  for  which 
the  African  native  puts  the  right  tone  on  the  right 
syllable  in  the  right  case.  In  what  cases  do  you  replace 
3S 


CAPACITIES  FOR  ACQUIRING  SPEECH 

the  word  far  by  the  expression  a  long  way  ?  What  are 
the  precise  laws  governing  the  respective  uses  of  went  and 
did  go  ?  Which  are  the  EngUsh  '  postpositions,'  if  any  ? 
In  what  cases  do  we  use  nouns  unpreceded  by  any 
article  or  other  determinative  word  ?  What  is  the  exact 
difference  between  had  you  and  did  you  have  ?  These 
are  a  few  odd  examples  chosen  at  random  out  of 
the  thousands  of  items  the  sum  of  which  constitutes 
the  theory  of  the  structure  of  the  English  colloquial 
language.  Most  of  them  are  not  contained  in  any 
manual  of  English  grammar  nor  ever  taught  as  a  school 
subject. 

We  are  forced  to  conclude  that  we  have  become  pro- 
ficient in  the  use  of  our  mother-tongue  by  some  process 
other  than  that  of  learning  by  dint  of  conscious  efforts  of 
reasoning  and  synthesis. 

While  granting  the  above  conclusion  and  recognizing 
its  validity,  some  may  object  that  the  process  of  un- 
conscious assimilation  is  not  sufficient  to  ensure  skill  and 
proficiency  in  the  use  of  the  language.  This  objection 
may  be  supported  by  proofs  to  the  effect  that  the  English 
of  young  children  (not  to  mention  adults)  is  frequently 
'  incorrect '  or  '  ungrammatical.'  Can  this  process  of 
nature  be  said  to  have  succeeded  when  it  produces  such 
results  as  "  Any  bloke  what  don't  do  it  proper  didn't 
ought  to  come  "  ?  Certainly  the  process  has  succeeded  ; 
most  certainly  the  natural  forces  have  operated  with 
perfect  success  !  The  only  trouble  is  that  users  of  such 
sentences  have  succeeded  in  learning  a  dialect  which 
most  of  us  agree  to  consider  a  deplorable  one  ;  this 
dialect  is  to  our  ears  an  ugly  and  a  repelling  one,  but  in 
itself  it  is  probably  no  easier  to  learn  than  the  educated 
colloquial.  An  educated  person  to  whom  this  dialect 
is  foreign  would  probably  have  to  pass  a  long  period  of 

89 


THE  PRINCIPLES  OF  LANGUAGE-STUDY 

study  should  he  wish,  for  any  particular  purpose,  to 
become  expert  in  its  use.  It  is  quite  a  fallacy  to  suppose 
that  a  debased  or  vulgar  form  of  speech  is  of  easier 
acquisition  than  the  more  elevated  forms.  The  language, 
dialect,  patois,  or  form  of  speech  taught  by  nature  to  the 
child  (or  adult)  is  that  form  which  he  hears  spoken  by 
those  about  him  during  the  period  of  acquisition,  be  it 
the  stilted  speech  of  the  pedant  or  the  jargon  of  the 
slums. 

Let  us  accept  the  thesis  as  so  far  proven  ;  let  us  agree 
that  this  spontaneous  capacity  exists,  that  every  child 
does  become  expert  in  this  art,  and  that  his  expert- 
ness  has  been  gained  by  the  exercise  of  some  powers 
other  than  those  of  conscious  reflection  or  reasoning. 
But  does  not  this  relate  solely  to  the  acquisition  of 
one's  mother -tongue  ?  In  the  definition  of  the  art  in 
question  the  term  '  any  given  language  '  was  used. 
Do  we  conclude  that  this  given  language  is  the  first 
language,  or  are  we  assuming  that  the  same  process 
holds  good  for  any  foreign  or  subsequently  learnt 
language  ? 

The  question  is  a  legitimate  one  ;  we  may  well  ask 
ourselves  whether  the  forces  which  were  operative  in 
the  case  of  our  first  language  are  available  for  the 
acquisition  of  a  second,  third,  or  fourth  language.  Let 
us,  as  before,  go  to  the  actual  facts  and  collect  objective 
evidence  on  the  point.  What  evidence  is  afforded  by 
bilingual  children,  that  is  to  say,  by  children  who 
have  learnt  two  languages  simultaneously,  children  of 
mixed  parentage,  children  whose  care  has  been  en- 
trusted to  foreign  nurses,  children  who  live  abroad  with 
their  parents  ?  In  nearly  all  the  cases  of  which  we  have 
any  record  it  would  appear  that  the  two  languages  have 
been  acquired  simultaneously  without  mutual  detriment ; 
40 


CAPACITIES  FOR  ACQUIRING  SPEECH 

there  has  been  practically  no  confusion  between  the  two, 
and  the  one  has  had  little  or  no  influence  on  the  other. 
Both  have  been  acquired  by  the  natural  language- 
teaching  forces  which  are  at  present  engaging  our 
attention. 

The  next  evidence  will  consist  of  the  testimony 
afforded  by  children  who  started  their  second  language 
after  the  first  had  already  been  acquired  as -.a  going 
concern.  We  find  almost  invariably  that  the  second 
language  is  picked  up  with  the  same  facility  and  accuracy 
as  the  first.  Thousands  of  Belgian  refugee  children 
returned  to  their  country  in  possession  of  an  English 
speech  hardly  to  be  distinguished  from  the  speech  of 
English  children  of  their  own  age.  Their  first  language 
had  interfered  in  no  way  with  their  power  of  acquiring 
the  second.  There  were,  however,  exceptions  ;  in  some 
instances  the  possession  of  the  first  language  did  inter- 
fere with  the  proper  acquiring  of  the  second.  What  was 
the  determining  factor  ?  To  what  was  due  this  differen- 
tiation ?  We  find  that  in  most  cases  the  child  was  of 
a  riper  age,  he  had  arrived  at  the  age  of  intelligence,  and 
had  been  forced  to  use  his  rudimentary  intelligence  as 
a  means  towards  learning  English.  He  was  old  enough 
and  clever  enough  to  receive  eye-impressions  side  by 
side  with  ear-impressions.  He  was  old  enough  to  pay 
attention,  he  was  intelligent  enough  to  concentrate,  he 
was  skilful  enough  to  analyse  and  to  compare  the  second 
language  with  his  first,  he  was  able  to  translate.  These 
things  had  a  harmful  influence  on  his  work  ;  they  inter- 
fered with  the  processes  by  which  nature  causes  us  to 
assimilate  and  to  remember,  and  the  quality  of  his 
English  siiffered  ;  it  was  to  a  certain  extent  '  foreigner's ' 
English,  whereas  his  younger  brothers  spoke  '  English  ' 
Enghsh. 

41 


THE  PRINCIPLES   OF  LANGUAGE-STUDY 

And  what  happens  in  the  case  of  the  adult,  of  one 
who  starts  his  second  language  from  fifteen  to  twenty 
years  after  he  has  acquired  the  first  ?  The  same  thing 
generally  happens  as  in  the  last  instance  quoted,  but  in 
a  more  marked  degree.  The  same  interference  takes 
place  ;  the  use  of  the  eyes  inhibits  the  use  of  the  ears  ; 
the  utilization  of  his  conscious  and  focused  attention 
militates  against  the  proper  functioning  of  the  natural 
capacities  of  assimilation.  Moreover,  he  is  encouraged 
and  trained  to  use  the  non-natural  methods,  he  is 
directed  by  his  teacher  to  pay  attention  to  everything, 
to  use  his  eyes,  to  memorize  spellings  (generally  non- 
phonetic)  ;  his  books  show  him  how  to  analyse,  they 
provide  him  with  exercises  calculated  to  make  him 
concentrate  on  the  detail,  and  in  so  doing  to  miss  the 
synthetic  whole.  Examine  the  adult  who  is^  supposed 
to  have  '  learnt  '  a  foreign  language  ;  in  the  majority 
of  cases  you  will  find  that  his  speech  is  pidgin-speech, 
that  his  sounds  are  wrong  and  wrongly  distributed, 
that  his  inflexions  are  inaccurate,  that  his  sentences 
are  constructed  on  the  model  of  his  native  language, 
that  he  uses  foreign  words  in  a  way  unknown  to  the 
native  users  of  these  same  words.  Inquire  in  each  case 
how  the  person  acquired  his  knowledge,  and  you  will  find 
that  he  acquired  it  by  dint  of  exercising  his  capacities 
for  study. 

And  the  minority  ?  We  find  a  minority  (alas,  a  small 
minority  !)  who  have  come  to  possess  the  foreign  language 
as  if  it  were  their  first.  Their  sounds  are  right,  the 
distribution  is  right,  the  inflexions  are  accurate,  their 
sentences  are  constructed  on  the  model  of  those  used  by 
the  native  speakers,  they  use  foreign  words  as  the 
natives  themselves  use  them,  they  are  as  accurate  and  as 
fluent  in  the  foreign  language  as  in  their  own.  They  do 
42 


CAPACITIES  FOR  ACQUIRING  SPEECH 

not  interrupt  the  speaker  of  the  language  with  requests 
to  speak  more  slowly,  to  speak  more  distinctly,  to  spell 
or  to  write  the  words ;  in  short,  they  use  the  second 
language  as  they  use  their  first.  Inquire  in  each  case 
how  the  person  acquired  his  knowledge,  and  you  will  find 
that  he  acquired  it  by  methods  making  no  call  on 
his  capacities  for  reasoning,  for  concentrating,  for 
analysing,  or  for  theorizing.  Instead  of  selecting  and 
adapting  previously  acquired  habits  connected  with  his 
first  language,  he  was  able  to  form  new  habits. 

To  sum  up  our  inquiry,  we  find  that  there  are 
people  who  have  been  able  to  use  their  spontaneous 
capacities  of  assimilation  in  order  to  acquire  a  second 
or  a  third  language;  we  find  that  young  children 
nearly  always  do  so,  that  certain  adults  sometimes 
do  so. 

But  we  must  make  quite  sure  of  our  ground  before 
proceeding  farther.  We  must  ascertain  definitely 
whether  all  adults  possess  what  we  are  calling  this 
spontaneous  capacity  for  assimilation,  or  whether  this  is 
a  '  gift '  in  the  usual  acceptation  of  the  term,  that  is, 
whether  it  is  a  capacity  given  to  some  but  withheld  by 
nature  from  others.  Some  maintain  that  from  the  age 
of  reason  onwards  none  but  the  gifted  possess  the  capacity 
in  question,  and  that  those  who  do  not  possess  it  are 
bound  to  use  what  we  shall  call  the  studial  processes. 
Others,  on  the  contrary,  maintain  that  all  possess  the 
capacity  either  in  an  active  or  in  a  latent  state,  that  most 
adults  deliberately  but  innocently  inhibit  their  power,  or 
that,  unaware  that  these  powers  exist,  they  fail  to  take 
the  necessary  steps  to  awaken  them  from  their  latent 
into  their  active  state. 

Which  of  these  two  is  the  correct  view  ? 

Let  us  endeavour  to  answer  this  ail-important  question 

48 


THE  PRINCIPLES   OF  LANGUAGE-STUDY 

by  examining  those  who  undoubtedly  do  possess  this 
'  gift '  or  natural  capacity.  We  first  inquire  whether 
they  were  encouraged  or  disposed  to  resist  the  temptation 
to  receive  their  impressions  through  the  eyes,  to  resist 
the  temptation  to  rely  on  spellings,  whether  they  did 
consent  to  use  their  ears  as  the  receptive  medium.  In 
each  case  we  learn  that  they  were  so  disposed  ;  they 
did  resist  the  temptation  towards  eye-work  and  did 
allow  the  ears  to  perform  the  work  for  which  they  were 
intended. 

We  next  inquire  whether  the  conditions  were  such 
as  prohibited  them  from  focusing  their  consciousness, 
from  paying  an  exaggerated  attention  to  detail,  from 
submitting  the  language-matter  to  a  form  of  analysis, 
froin  comparing  each  foreign  word  or  form  with  some 
word  or  form  of  their  native  language.  In  each  case  we 
are  informed  that  such  were  the  conditions. 

Our  next  inquiry  is  directed  towards  ascertaining 
whether,  in  the  earlier  stages,  the  conditions  afforded 
them  full  and  constant  opportunities  of  hea^'ing  the 
language  used,  without  being  under  the  necessity  of  speaking 
it  themselves.  In  each  instance  we  are  informed  that 
those  were  precisely  the  conditions. 

This  is  almost  conclusive  ;  we  have  ascertained  that 
each  successful  acquirer  of  the  foreign  language  was 
working  precisely  under  the  conditions  enjoyed  by  the 
young  child  (and  we  remember  that  the  young  child 
is  invariably  a  successful  acquirer  of  foreign  languages). 
It  is,  however,  not  conclusive  enough  ;  we  have  yet 
to  inquire  under  what  conditions  the  other  type  of 
adult  (the  supposedly  non-gifted  one)  had  been  work- 
ing. We  ask  the  same  three  sets  of  questions,  and  in 
answer  we  learn  : 

(a)  That  he  was  encouraged  by  his  teachers  to 
4*4 


CAPACITIES  FOR  ACQUIRING  SPEECH 

learn  by  the  medium  of  his  eyes,  to  base  his  knowledge 
on  spellings  (generally  non-phonetic),  and  in  so  doing  to 
inhibit  his  ears  from  fulfilling  their  natural  function. 

(b)  That  he  generally  focused  his  consciousness,  that 
he  paid  attention  to  detail,  that  he  studied  rules  and 
practised  analysis,  that  he  constantly  established  com- 
parisons between  the  foreign  word  and  the  nearest  native 
equivalent. 

(c)  That  conditions  were  such  that  he  had  few  or  no 
opportunities  of  hearing  the  language  used,  while  he 
was  obliged  to  use  the  language  himself,  to  forge  out 
sentences  as  best  he  might,  neglectful  of  accuracy  and 
heedless  of  their  conformity  or  non-conformity  with 
authentic  models. 

This  is  conclusive  ;  there  is  no  doubt  about  it  now. 
,Those  who  seemingly  do  not  possess  the  spontaneous 
capacity  for  assimilating  foreign  languages  are  pre- 
cisely those  who  were  unwilling  to  avail  themselves  of  it, 
or  who  were  precluded  from  availing  themselves  of  it. 
*  And  by  developing  their  studial  powers  they  simply  y 
inhibited  the  spontaneous  powers  and  effectively  pre-  ^ 
vented  them  from  working. 

No  reasonable  doubt  remains  :  we  are  all  endowed 
by  nature  with  certain  capacities  which  enable  each  of  us, 
without  the  exercise  of  our  powers  of  study,  to  assimilate 
and  to  use  the  spoken  form  of  any  colloquial  language, 
whether  native  or  foreign.  We  may  avail  ourselves  of 
these  powers  by  training  ourselves  deliberately  to  utilize  - 
them,  or,  having  more  confidence  in  our  studial  efforts, 
or  for  some  reason  of  special  expediency,  we  may  choose 
to  leave  our  spontaneous  capacities  in  their  latent  state 
and  make  no  use  of  them.  We  cannot,  however,  afford 
to  ignore  them,  and  it  would  be  foolish  to  deny  their 
existence. 

45 


THE  PRINCIPLES   OF  LANGUAGE-STUDY 

We  shall  see  later  what  steps  we  must  take  if  we  wish 
to  rouse  these  powers  from  their  latent  state,  what  we 
must  do  if  we  wish  to  enlist  them  and  have  them  at  our 
disposal  for  the  purpose  of  learning  or  of  teaching  a 
foreign  language. 


46 


CHAPTER  II 

OUR  STUDIAL   CAPACITIES  AND   HOW  TO 
USE  THEM 

WE  have  seen  that  each  of  us  possesses  certain 
spontaneous  capacities  for  learning  how  to 
use  the  spoken  form  of  any  language  or  variety 
of  language.  We  have  seen  that  these  capacities  may 
be  either  in  a  latent  or  an  active  state.  We  have  seen 
that  unless  we  enlist  these  powers  in  our  service  we  are 
unlikely  to  make  any  real  progress  in  language-study, 
either  in  point  of  quality  or  quantity.  We  shall  see 
later  by  what  means  we  may  awaken  our  latent 
capacities  and  cause  them  to  become  active,  and, 
incidentally,  how  we  can  exercise  ourselves  to  make 
the  fullest  use  of  them. 

But  we  also  possess  capacities  other  than  these  for 
assimilating  and  using  a  language.  It  is  our  purpose  in 
the  present  chapter  to  see  what  these  are,  and  to  differen- 
tiate between  them  and  those  already  described. 

In  the  first  place,  let  us  note  carefully  that  we  have 
so  far  dealt  with  no  other  form  of  language  than  the 
normal  spoken  colloquial,  that  form  which  is  used  under 
normal  conditions  by  the  average  educated  native.  We 
have  not  been  considering  any  written  form  of  language 
whatever,  either  colloquial  or  classical,  nor  have  we 
given  any  attention  to  the  more  classical  or  literary  form 
of  speech  whether  spoken  or  written.  We  have,  indeed, 
alluded  to  these  aspects  or  varieties  of  language,  but 

47 


THE  PRINCIPLES   OF  LANGUAGE-STUDY 

merely  in  order  to  state  that  they  are  beyond  the  range 
of  any  truly  spontaneous  capacities.  Reading  and 
writing  are  not  spontaneous  processes ;  they  are  even 
unnatural  processes  if  we  do  not  already  possess  the 
spoken  form.  Learning  how  to  use  classical  or  arti- 
ficialized  forms  of  language  such  as  poetry  or  rhetoric 
is  a  more  or  less  studial  process,  an  unnatural  process 
if  we  do  not  already  possess  the  normal  colloquial.  For 
this,  then,  if  not  for  other  reasons,  we  must  be  prepared 
to  adopt  certain  forms  of  work  unknown  to  man  in 
his  natural  state  (as  exemplified  by  the  very  young 
child ) ;  we  shall  allude  to  these  as  the  '  studial 
methods.' 

What,  then,  are  these  studial  methods  ?  Roughly 
speaking,  we  may  say  that  they  comprise  all  those 
forms  of  work  which  require  on  the  part  of  the  student 
conscious  efforts  of  attention ;  work  in  which  he  must 
think,  reflect,  or  calculate ;  work  necessitating  the 
exercise  of  his  reasoning  powers,  work  which  cannot 
be  performed  automatically ;  this  constitutes  conscious 
work,  and  all  methods  embodying  conscious  work  become 
ipso  facto  studial  methods. 

Most  work  of  analysis  and  synthesis  is  of  this  order  ; 
all  that  we  do  to  break  up  a  sentence  into  w^ords,  into 
syllables,  into  sounds  ;  all  that  v/e  do  to  piece  together 
sounds,  syllables,  and  words  in  order  to  form  sentences  is 
of  this  order.  Whenever  we  are  distinctly  conscious  of 
the  words  and  constructions  we  are  using,  we  are  doing 
something  unknown  to  nature.  Whenever  we  come  to 
understand  a  sentence  by  analysing  it,  or  to  utter  a 
sentence  by  piecing  together  as  we  go  on,  we  are  working 
by  processes  of  the  studial  order  ;  they  were  not  used 
when  we  were  learning  our  mother-tongue. 

All  those  forms  of  work  which  we  may  include  under 

48 


OUR  STUDIAL  CAPACITIES 

the  heading  of  '  conversion  '  are  studial,  and  these  are 
many  and  varied.  Dictation  consists  in  causing  the 
pupil  to  convert  the  spoken  into  the  written  aspect  of 
language,  reading  consists  in  causing  him  to  do  the 
reverse,  most  forms  of  translating  consist  in  causing 
him  to  convert  something  from  one  language  into 
another.  We  may  also  at  times  require  our  pupils  to 
convert  an  affirmative  sentence  into  a  negative  or  an 
interrogative  one,  to  convert  a  present  tense  into  a 
past,  a  singular  into  a  plural,  passive  into  active,  to 
convert  a  certain  word-order  into  another. 

All  these  things  are  of  the  studial  order  ;  sound  they 
may  be,  necessary  or  essential  they  may  be,  but  they 
are  not  spontaneous  forms  of  work,  for  we  have  not 
by  their  aid  learnt  to  use  the  spoken  colloquial  form  of 
our  mother-tongue. 

All  methods  which  necessitate  the  use  of  the  eye  are 
studial  methods  ;  nature  never  meant  us  to  learn  spoken 
language  by  eye.  We  may  therefore  designate  as 
studial  all  forms  of  reading,  reading  aloud  or  mental 
reading,  reading  from  traditional  orthographies  or 
phonetic  transcriptions,  reading  of  isolated  sounds  or  of 
connected  passages.  More  especially  of  the  studial  order 
are  those  curious  and  complicated  practices  (common, 
alas  !  to  so  many  students)  of  '  reading  what  w^e  hear '  or 
'  writing  what  we  speak.'  In  the  former  case,  we  hear 
a  sentence,  we  reduce  it  mentally  to  written  characters, 
and  read  mentally  what  we  see  in  our  imagination  ;  in 
the  other  case  we  write  in  our  imaginatipn  what  we  wish 
to  say,  and  read  aloud  what  we  are  writing. 

It  follows  that  all  methods  which  require  us  to  use  the 
hand  are  studial  methods ;  nature  knows  no  more  of 
spellings  and  handwriting  than  she  does  of  shorthand, 
typewriting,  and  type-setting  ;   all  these  things  are  of 

4  49 


THE  PRINCIPLES   OF  LANGUAGE-STUDY 

comparatively  recent  origin,  and  all  of  them  have  been 
deliberately  invented  by  man. 

All  methods  which  teach  meanings  by  means  of 
etymology  are  of  the  studial  order ;  nature  intended  that 
each  word  should  become  attached  to  that  for  which  it 
stands  and  not  become  associated  with  its  ancestral 
etymon  or  modern  cognates.  The  dictum  of  nature  is 
that  a  word  means  what  all  speakers  of  the  same 
language  (or  variety  of  language)  mean  it  to  mean. 

Thus  it  would  appear  that  nearly  everything  that  the 
average  person  actually  does  when  learning  a  foreign 
language  comes  under  the  heading  of  the  studial  pro- 
cesses. He  learns  rules  in  order  to  become  proficient 
in  analysis  and  synthesis  ;  for  the  same  purpose,  he 
memorizes  the  exceptions  to  the  rules.  He  becomes 
(or  hopes  to  become)  an  expert  in  pulling  words  to 
pieces  and  in  reconstructing  them  from  roots  and  affixes, 
in  sentence-making  and  sentence-breaking.  He  learns 
chiefly  by  eye,  and  expresses  himself  chiefly  by  the  pen- 
grasping  hand.  Indeed,  he  becomes  so  proficient  in 
converting  the  spoken  into  the  written  form  that  he 
cannot  understand  or  retain  the  foreign  words  or 
sentences  he  learns  until  he  has  converted  them  into  an 
imaginary  written  form  which,  in  his  imagination,  he 
reads  off  word  by  word.  Similarly,  he  finds  himself  only 
able  to  express  himself  by  dint  of  reading  aloud  the 
sentences  which  he  is  constructing  bit  by  bit  by  a  com- 
plicated process  of  '  mental  writing.'  He  aims  at 
becoming  (and  often  does  become)  expert  in  converting 
one  language  into  another  by  a  process  (unknown  to 
nature)  called  translating.  His  accuracy  is  gained  by 
rapid  conversions  of  words  from  one  inflected  form  to 
another  :  nominatives  into  accusatives,  singulars  into 
plurals,  infinitives  into  participles.     He  attaches  great 

50 


OUR  STUDIAL   CAPACITIES 

importance  to  etymology,  and  the  time  he  might  spend  in 
associating  words  with  their  meanings  is  often  devoted 
to  working  out  the  family  tree  of  foreign  words.  He 
spends  little  time  in  finding  out  what  meanings  the 
natives  attach  to  their  words  and  forms,  but  much  time 
in  identifying  the  units  of  etymology  and  in  tracing 
them  from  one  language  to  another. 

This  does  not  necessarily  imply  that  the  student  is 
always  doing  the  wrong  thing,  nor  that  his  methods  are 
always  bad  ones  ;  we  merely  observe  that  he  uses  (or 
is  taught  to  use)  all  manner  of  studial  methods  at  the 
expense  of  spontaneous  ones,  and  that,  in  so  doing,  he 
develops  his  studial  capacities  of  language-study  at 
the  expense  of  his  spontaneous  ones.  The  question 
whether  the  studial  methods  should  be  used  at  all  and, 
if  so,  which  should  be  used,  forms  the  subject  of  the 
next  chapter. 


51 


CHAPTER   III 

WHY  WE  MUST  USE  OUR  STUDIAL 
CAPACITIES 

WE  should  not  conclude  that  methods  involv- 
ing our  powers  of  study  are  to  be  abandoned, 
and  that  nature  alone  is  to  be  responsible  for 
our  linguistic  education.  On  the  contrary,  we  suggest 
that  an  extensive  use  be  made  of  powers  which  are  not 
possessed  by  the  young  child  or  the  barbarian. 

In  the  first  place,  nature  will  not  teach  us  to  read  or 
to  WTite,  but  merely  to  become  proficient  in  the  use  of 
the  spoken  form  of  a  given  language.  However  valuable 
it  may  be  to  possess  the  spoken  form,  most  of  us  wish 
to  go  beyond  this  ;  we  wish  eventually  to  be  able  to 
use  some  form  of  orthography.  Some  even  desire  to 
go  beyond  this  and  to  learn  to  use  shorthand  or  the  type- 
writer, man-made  inventions  of  a  still  more  recent  date. 
For  we  must  remember  that,  after  all,  traditional  ortho- 
graphy is  not  a  whit  more  '  natural '  than  shorthand,  and 
a  good  deal  less  '  natural '  than  phonetic  transcription 
or  reformed  spelling. 

To  learn,  however,  the  written  form  of  a  language 
i  before  having  learnt  how  to  assimilate  the  spoken  form 
is  unnatural  and"  contrary  to  all  our  linguistic  instincts  ; 
it  is  comparable  to  learning  to  cycle  before  having  learnt 
to  walk.f  At  a  certain  stage,  therefore,  the  learner  will 
be  taught  how  to  recognize  by  eye  what  he  has  already 
assimilated  by  ear,  and  how  to  express  with  the  pen  whal 
52 


OUR  STUDIAL   CAPACITIES 

he  has  hitherto  expressed  by  means  of  articulate  sounds. 
In  each  case  the  process  will  be  one  of  conversion,  con- 
verting written  characters  into  sounds  or  converting 
sounds  into  written  characters.  In  both  cases  there  will 
be  articulation  of  some  sort,  for  mental  reading  means 
meiital  articulation,  and  when  we  write  we  only  write 
what  we  are  repeating  to  ourselves  mentally. 

Neither  of  these  forms  of  conversion  is  necessarily 
difficult.  The  processes,  without  being  spontaneous  in 
the  true  sense  of  the  term,  present  at  times  certain 
analogies  to  truly  spontaneous  processes  in  that  they  are 
apparently  performed  without  effort.  Much  depends, 
however,  on  the  system  of  script ;  if  the  alphabet  of 
the  foreign  language  is  almost  identical  with  an  alpha- 
bet we  have  already  learnt  to  use,  the  difficulty  will  be 
less  than  in  the  case  of  a  totally  strange  alphabet  or 
syllabar;;^.  Japanese  script,  which  contains  a  strange 
mixture  of  Chinese  characters  used  both  ideographically 
and  phonetically,  together  with  two  different  systems 
of  native  phonetic  writing,  presents  difficulties  unknown 
to  the  European  student  of  European  languages. 

The  artificial  element  in  writing  is  particularly  evident 
when  we  consider  that  many  if  not  most  orthographic 
sK^stems  are  in  contradiction  to  the  spoken  form  of  the 
languages  they  claim  to  represent.  English  spelling  is 
kn  excellent  case  in  point ;  its  divergences  from  the 
actual  language  are  so  numerous  and  so  great  that  we 
may  be  said  to  possess  two  distinct  languages,  the 
spoken  and  the  written.  To  learn  and  to  apply  the 
arbitrary  laws  and  conventions  which  serve  to  bridge  the 
gap  between  the  two  requires  capacities  of  observation 
and  reasoning  of  a  special  order,  essentially  studial.  For 
that  reason  we  must  make  use  of  conversion  devices  of 
various  kinds  ;    dictation,  reading  aloud,  transcription 

58 


THE  PRINCIPLES   OF  LANGUAGE-STUDY 

(or  transliteration),  and  spelling  drill.  Many  so-called 
'  difficulties  of  grammar  '  prove  to  be  mere  difficulties 
of  spelling  ;  the  French  conjugation  and  what  remains 
of  French  declension  are  largely  matters  of  spelling,  often 
as  baffling  to  the  native  French  speaker  as  to  the  non- 
French  student. 

There  are  other  reasons  why  studial  methods  must  be 
adopted  in  a  complete  language-course.  There  exist 
forms  of  speech  other  than  the  form  which  is  used  nor- 
mally in  everyday  conversation.  There  exist  artificial- 
ized  non-colloquial  dialects,  such  as  poetry,  the  lan- 
guage of  emotion  and  oratory,  the  language  of  ceremony, 
tlie  liturgical,  and  similar  classical  or  archaic  varieties. 
As  we  have  already  seen,  nature  teaches  us  only  those 
living  forms  which  are  used  by  the  people  of  our  environ- 
ment ;  for  the  others  we  must  have  recourse  to  studial 
methods.  The  everyday  colloquial  form  is  something 
we  learn  at  home  or  in  the  street ;  the  higher  or  more 
gesthetic  forms  are  taught  us  at  school  or  at  college  ;  we 
have  to  study  them.  The  art  of  literary  composition, 
the  art  of  selecting  and  assembling  deliberately  and  con- 
sciously those  words  which  express  our  thoughts  and 
emotions  in  the  clearest  and  most  appropriate  manner, 
differs  widely  and  essentially  from  the  art  of  colloquy  as 
exercised  in  our  daily  life.  In  order  to  become  proficient 
in  literary  composition,  we  must  acquire  habits  of  con- 
centration, we  must  be  able  to  analyse,  we  must  become 
expert  in  synthesis,  we  must  learn  to  discriminate,  we 
must  develop  our  intelligence.  The  young  child  cannot 
do  these  things,  nor  can  the  savage  or  the  idiot. 

There  is  another  reason  why  we  cannot  leave  every- 
thing to  nature  :  most  language-courses  must  necessarily 
be  corrective  courses.  The  teacher  generally  finds  among 
his  adult  students  a  large  number  who  have  already 

54 


OUR  STUDIAL  CAPACITIES 

acquired  certain  notions  of  the  language  ;  they  may  have 
spent  one  or  more  years  working  at  school-French, 
school-English,  or  whatever  the  language  may  be  ;  they 
may  have  spent  some  time  in  the  country  where  it  is 
spoken,  or  they  may  have  studied  privately.  In  most 
of  these  cases  it  is  practically  certain  that  the  student 
w411  have  formed  bad  linguistic  habits  ;  his  pronuncia- 
tion will  be  deplorable,  his  command  of  the  inflected 
forms  will  be  deficient,  his  syntax  will  be  faulty,  and  his 
semantic  system  will  be  that  of  his  native  tongue.  In 
other  terms,  he  has  acquired  a  pidgin  form  of  the  lan- 
guage, such  as  Anglo-French  or  Franco-English,  un- 
natural dialects  unknown  to  native  speakers  ;  he  may 
have  become  accustomed  to  using  this  form  of  language, 
even  to  using  it  automatically.  Nor  is  that  all ;  not 
only  is  his  language-material  faulty  (to  say  the  least  of 
it),  but  his  manner  of  study  will  probably  have  impaired 
very  seriously  his  capacities  for  any  sound  form  of 
assimilation.  He  has  not  been  trained  to  observe  nor 
to  imitate  nor  to  construct  sentences  by  analogy  ;  he 
has  so  trained  himself  to  hearing  what  he  expects  to 
hear  and  what  he  thinks  he  hears  that  he  has  no  notion 
of  what  he  actually  does  hear ;  in  short,  he  has  generally 
learnt  wrong  material  in  wrong  ways. 

The  only  suitable  course  for  such  a  student  would  be 
a  corrective  course,  a  course  which  would  aim  at  replac- 
ing his  faulty  material  by  sound  material  and  at  replacing 
his  former  methods  of  study  by  sound  methods.  One 
by  one  his  unsound  acquisitions  must  be  replaced  by 
sound  ones  ;  we  must  teach  him  a  new  language.  Now 
this  cannot  be  done  by  means  of  spontaneous  methods 
alone  ;  unconsciousness  will  not  undo  the  work  conscious- 
ness has  done  ;  the  natural  powers  which  enable  us  to 
assimilate  normal  speech  will  rarely,  if  ever,  turn  bad 

55 


THE  PRINCIPLES   OF  LANGUAGE -STUDY 

habits  into  good  ones  or  convert  pidgin-speech  into 
normal  speech.  What  has  been  done  consciously  must 
be  undone  consciously.  The  student  must  be  shown 
specifically  in  what  respects  his  speech  differs  from  that 
used  by  natives,  and  he  must  deliberately  set  to  work 
to  correct  it  item  by  item  ;  we  must  explain  things  to 
him ;  we  must  provide  him  with  charts,  diagrams,  and 
exercises  ;  we  must  put  him  through  courses  of  drill- 
work,  and  all  these  things  will  require  his  cateful  and 
even  concentrated  attention.  We  must  also  teach  him 
how  to  correct  his  faulty  methods  of  assimilating ;  we 
must  explain  to  him  why  they  are  faulty  and  convince 
him  that,  however  natural  and  easy  they  may  seem  to 
him,  they  are  only  of  utility  to  the  learner  of  pidgin- 
speech.  We  must  teach  him  how  to  utilize  the  sound 
processes  (both  spontaneous  and  studial) ;  he  will  not 
like  to  do  so,  he  will  constantly  tend  to  revert  to  the 
processes  to  which  he  has  become  accustomed  ;  we  must 
react  and  cause  him  to  react  against  his  vicious  tend- 
encies. After  a  time,  if  fortunate,  we  may  succeed  in 
eradicating  most  of  the  faulty  matter  and  in  initiating 
the  right  habits  of  assimilation.  From  that  point 
onwards  the  course  will  not  be  a  corrective  one  but  a 
normal  one. 

Do  these  considerations  apply  only  to  one  who  has 
already  studied  the  language  faultily,  to  the  user  of 
pidgin-speech  ?  Are  we  to  take  it  that  the  raw  beginner 
is  exempt  from  unnatural  or  vicious  habits  ?  Unfortu- 
nately this  is  not  the  case  :  more  often  than  not,  the 
student  (even  the  student  unspoiled  by  previous  de- 
fective work)  will  tend  to  let  his  first  language  influence 
his  second.  If  he  is  English,  he  will  tend  to  insinuate 
English  sounds,  English  forms,  and  English  thoughts 
into  the  new  language,  which  will  therefore  tend  to 
56 


OUR   STUDIAL  CAPACITIES 

become  pidginjzed.  This  tendency  will  be  greater  with 
some  than  with  others ;  much  depends  on  the  attitude 
of  the  student  towards  the  language  he  is  about  to 
learn ;  he  may  already  have  studied  other  foreign 
languages,  and  in  doing  so  may  have  acquired  the 
wrong  attitude  towards  foreign  languages  in  general. 
If  he  considers  them  as  branches  of  study  similar  to 
mathematics,  history,  or  geography  ;  or  if  he  considers 
them  essentially  as  orthographic  systems  of  which  the 
phonetic  form  is  an  unimportant  detail,  he  will  already 
have  Jiecome  one  for  whom  a  corrective  course  is 
necessary.  We  shall  have  to  remove  his  prejudices 
and  to  modify  his  point  of  view  ;  a  certain  amount 
f  preliminary  work  will  have  to  be  done  in  order 
^^that  he  may  see  languages  as  they  really  are,  in  order 
that  he  may  see  the  nature  of  the  task  before  him. 
This  preliminary  work  will  be  of  the  studial  order,  but 
will  be  succeeded  at  the  right  moment  by  the  more 
normal  and  more  spontaneous  methods.  On  the  other 
hand,  many  students  start  with  no  preconceived  ideas 
v/hatever  ;  children,  the  less  intelligent  adults,  and  those 
who  have  been  unspoiled  by  the  traditional  classical 
fallacies  will  slip  easily  and  naturally  into  the  right 
attitude.  They  will  recognize  the  necessity  for  learning 
new  sounds  and  combinations,  for  assimilating  foreign 
material  without  at  each  instant  comparing  it  with  the 
material  of  the  mother-tongue  ;  for  retaining  by  the 
auditory  memory  strings  of  words  and  sentences,  for 
reproducing  orally  what  they  hear,  and  for  forming  the 
right  semantic  associations.  Such  students  will  be  im- 
mune or  nearly  so  from  the  vicious  tendencies  which  so 
characterize  the  average  language-learner ;  they  will 
merely  have  to  be  put  on  their  guard  at  certain  critical 
moments  ;    we  shall  at  such  moments  observe  certain 

57 


THE  PRINCIPLES   OF  LANGUAGE-STUDY 

reasonable  precautions  in  order  that  bad  habits  may  not 
be  acquired. 

A  fourth  reason  why  we  must  not  neglect  the  studial 
methods  may  be  mentioned  here.  Many  set  out  not  so 
much  to  acquire  the  capacity  for  using  the  language 
as  to  learn  its  structure  and  peculiarities,  just  as  a 
mechanic  may  wish  to  become  acquainted  with  a 
machine  without  having  the  intention  of  ever  using 
it.  Phoneticians,  grammarians,  and  philologists  must 
in  the  ordinary  course  of  their  work  become  familiar 
with  the  characteristic  features  of  many  languages  or 
dialects.  For  this  purpose  it  is  by  no  means  necessary 
that  they  should  acquire  the  capacity  for  understanding, 
speaking,  reading,  or  writing  the  languages  which  interest 
them. 

In  such  cases  the  spontaneous  methods  v/ould  obviously 
be  G|i^f  place ;  no  call  need  be  made  or  should  be  made 
j^j^Hfcudents'  natural  powers  of  language-assimilat- 
iS^^Key  would  proceed  by  way  of  analysis  and 
syntr^^Kand  instead  of  retaining  the  actual  language- 
mater^^^Kclf  w^ould  retain  merely  the  laws  which 
govern^jH^nctioning  of  the  language. 

We  mi^^felace  in  this  category  of  students  those 
whose  subs^^fent  intention  is  to  teach  the  language  to 
others.  It  rfflJL  not  be  necessary  for  the  language- 
learner  to  know  n^h  about  the  theory  of  phonetics,  but 
the  language-^^ac^^  must  possess  a  considerable  know- 
ledge of  phonetic  theory  both  general  and  as  applied  to 
the  particular  language  in  which  he  is  an  instructor.  The 
learner  need  know  little  about  the  sciences  dealing  with 
inflexions,  sentence-construction,  or  meanings ;  but  the 
teacher  must  know  a  good  deal  about  these  things  in 
order  that  he  may  foresee  the  special  difficulties  which 
his    pupils    will    encounter,   and    devise  the   necessary 

58 


OUR  STUDIAL   CAPACITIES 

exercises  to  overcome  them.  The  technical  side  of 
language  will  therefore  be  of  importance  to  all  who  are 
or  who  intend  to  become  teachers,  and  such  knowledge, 
like  any  other  technical  knowledge,  is  acquired  by 
methods  unrelated  to  our  spontaneous  capacities  for 
assimilating  normal  colloquial  speech. 

The  four  series  of  considerations  set  forth  above  are 
sufficient  to  show  that  it  would  be  either  unwise  or  im- 
possible to  proceed  by  the  sole  aid  of  nature  or  by  the 
reconstitution  of  natural  conditions.  Language-study 
is  such  a  complex  thing,  with  so  many  aspects,  and  it 
requires  to  be  looked  at  from  so  many  points  of  view, 
that  we  must  enlist  all  our  capacities  when  striving  to 
obtain  the  mastery  we  desire  ;  we  must  not  neglect  our 
spontaneous  powers,  nor  should  we  despise  our  intel- 
lectual powders ;  both  are  of  service  to  us,  both  have 
their  place  in  a  well-conceived  programme  of  ^t^^dy, 
each  will  to  a  certain  extent  balance  the  othei 
complementary  to  it.  An  excess  on  either 
be  prejudicial  to  the  student,  and  one  of 
important  problems  before  the  speech-psychj 
determine  in  what  circumstances  and 
sions  each  should  be  used.  More  will  b( 
particular  phase  of  the  subject  in  Chaj 
Multiple  Line  of  Approach  "). 


59 


CHAPTER   IV 
THE   STUDENT  AND   HIS   AIM 

WHAT  is  the  best  method  of  language- study  ? 
This  fundamental  question  is  one  which  is 
continually  asked  by  all  those  who  are 
seriously  engaged  in  teaching  or  in  learning  a  foreign 
language.  We  say  '  seriously  '  and  lay  stress  on  the 
word,  for  among  teachers  and  students  there  are  many, 
unfortunately,  who  are  not  disposed  to  take  their  work 
seriously,  who  see  no  necessity  for  any  earnest  considera- 
tion of  the  ways  and  means  to  be  adopted.  They  are 
eoY\Mt^o  teach  as  they  themselves  have  been  taught, 
or  G^H|irn  as  others  have  learnt  before  them,  without 
inquiPng  whether  the  plan  or  the  programme  is  a  sound 
one,  without  even  inquiring  whether  the  method  is  one 
which  is  likely  to  produce  any  good  results  whatever. 
But  the  serious  teacher  or  student,  who  wishes  to  per- 
form efficient  work,  must  of  necessity  ask  himself 
whether  the  path  he  has  chosen  is  one  which  will  lead 
anywhere  near  the  desired  end  or  ends.  He  may 
experiment  with  various  methods  and  try  a  number  of 
different  systems  in  order  to  ascertain  which  of  these 
secures  the  best  results,  and  after  many  such  trials 
he  may  either  hit  upon  what  seems  to  be  an  ideal  type 
of  work  and  stick  to  it,  or,  dissatisfied  with  everything 
he  has  tried,  he  may  once  again  seek  counsel  and  ask 
once  more  the  old  and  hackneyed  question  :  What  is 
the  best  method  of  language-study  ? 
60 


THE  STUDENT  AND  HIS  AIM 

The  first  answer  which  suggests  itself  is :  "  The  / 
best  method  is  that  which  adopts  the  best  means  to 
the  required  end,"  and  indeed  this  is  perhaps  the 
only  concise  answer  which  can  be  furnished  off-hand. 
But  the  answer  is  not  satisfactory  ;  it  is  too  general, 
and  so  true  that  it  ranks  as  a  truism  ;  it  is  resented 
as  being  a  facetious  manner  of  shelving  the  question. 
The  inquirer  has  every  right  to  return  to  the  charge 
and  to  put  the  supplementary  question  :  "  What  is 
the  method  which  adopts  the  best  means  to  the 
required  end  ?  " 

In  the  present  book  we  shall  endeavour  to  find  the 
best  answer  or  the  best  series  of  answers  to  this  most 
legitimate  question.  In  doing  so  we  shall  set  forth,  with 
as  much  precision  as  is  consistent  with  the  claims  of 
conciseness,  the"^  conclusions  arrived  at  by  those  who 
have  specialized  in  the  subject  and  have  obtained  positive 
evidence  bearing  on  it. 

Fundamental  as  the  question  appears,  there  is  yet 
a  previous  question  of  which  we  must  dispose  before 
going  further,  for  we  cannot  determine  "  what  is 
the  best  method  adopting  the  best  means  towards  the 
required  end  "  until  we' know  more  precisely  what  is  the 
required  end. 

^For  there  are  many  possible  ends,  and  many  cate- 
gories of  students,  each  with  a  particular  aim  before 
him. 

Many  desire  a  knowledge  of  the  written  language  only ; 
they  wish  to  be  able  to  read  and  write,  not  to  understand 
the  spoken  language  nor  to  speak.  Some  may  limit 
their  attainment  to  a  capacity  for  reading  the  language  \ 
they  Vvish  to  have  direct  access  to  technical  or  other 
books.  Others  conceivably  may  wish  solely  to  become 
able  to  write  letters  in  the  language. '  Many  are  only 

61 


THE  PRINCIPLES   OF  LANGUAGE- STUDY 

concerned  with  spoken  language ;  they  wish  to  be  able 
to  speak  and  to  understand  what  they  hear.  Some 
wish  to  possess  an  '  understanding  '  knowledge  only, 
while  others  are  content  merely  to  make  themselves 
understood. 

The  student  may  limit  his  requirements  to  a  very 
superficial  knowledge  of  some  pidgin  form  of  the  language, 
and  will  be  perfectly  happy  if  he  just  succeeds  in  making 
himself  understood  by  using  some  atrocious  caricature 
of  the  language  which  he  is  supposed  to  be  learning.  Or 
he  may  be  more  ambitious  and  set  out  in  earnest  to 
become  master  of  the  living  language  just  as  it  is  spoken 
and  ^Titten  by  the  natives  themselves.  The  phonetician 
will  wish  to  attain  absolute  perfection  in  the  pronuncia- 
tion of  the  language  ;  the  etymologist  will  concentrate 
on  the  historical  aspect ;  the  philologist  will  not  be  happy 
unless  he  is  comparing  the  structure  with  that  of  cognate 
languages  ;  the  grammarian  will  specialize  in  grammar, 
and  the  lexicologist  or  semantician  will  study  the 
meanings. 

The  clerk  or  merchant  will  specialize  in  the  commercial 
language  and  learn  how  to  draw  up  bills  of  lading  or  to 
conduct  business  correspondence.  The  hotel-keeper  or 
waiter  will  concentrate  on  hotel  colloquial,  as  also  will 
the  tourist  or  tripper.  The  litUrateur  will  aim  straight 
at  the  literature  and  disdain  any  of  the  non-sesthetic 
aspects  or  branches.  Every  calling  or  profession  will 
seek  its  own  particular  line,  and  for  each  there  will  be  a 
particular  aim. 

Many  students  have  as  their  sole  aim  the  passing  of  a 
given  examination.  Whether  they  come  to  know  the 
language  or  not  is  a  matter  of  comparative  indifference 
to  them  ;  their  business  is  to  obtain  as  many  marks  as 
possible  with  the  least  amount  of  effort,  and  what  does 

62 


THE  STUDENT  AND   HIS   AIM 

not  lead  directly  to  this  aim  is  not  of  interest.  It  is  the 
duty  of  many  or  most  teachers  to  coach  or  to  cram  their 
pupils  in  order  that  satisfactory  examination  results 
may  be  obtained  ;  they  cannot  afford  to  do  anything 
else,  nor  have  they  any  desire  to  do  so.  If  the  examina- 
tion includes  questions  on  phonetic  theory,  the  pupil 
will  be  crammed  with  phonetic  theory;  if  it  includes 
a  test  in  conversation,  the  pupil  will  be  crammed 
with  conversational  tags ;  if  it  requires  the  capacity 
of  translating,  the  pupil  will  duly  be  coached  in  the 
art  of  translating ;  if  it  requires  a  knowledge  of  a 
given  text  or  series  of  texts,  these  will  be  the  subject 
of  study.  If  the  pupil  or  his  teacher  knows  some- 
thing of  the  particular  examiner,  special  efforts  will  be 
made  to  please  that  particular  examiner.  But  this 
has  little  or  nothing  to  do  with  the  serious  study  of 
languages. 

Some  people  are  professional  translators  or  inter- 
preters ;  it  is  their  business  to  render  a  faithful  account 
of  a  speech  or  a  sentence  uttered  in  another  language  or 
to  interpret  the  thoughts  of  some  foreign  writer.  This 
work  requires  very  special  quaUfications  and  necessitates 
a  very  special  study,  so  much  so  that  those  who  are 
perfectly  bilingual  experience  a  great  difficulty  every 
time  that  they  are  called  upon  to  render  a  faithful 
translation  of  any  document  or  a  faithful  interpretation 
of  any  oral  communication.  The  task  of  the  translator 
is  quite  distinct  from  that  of  the  ordinary  student  of 
language,  and  is  to  be  dealt  with  as  such.  Generally 
speaking,  however,  the  language  -  learner  will  have 
comparatively  little  to  do  with  the  profession  of 
interpreter  or  translator,  and  even  in  the  exceptional 
cases  he  will  do  well  to  leave  this  particular  branch 
until   he   has  attained   a  certain  proficiency  in  using 

68 


THE  PRINCIPLES   OF  LANGUAGE-STUDY 

the  foreign  language  independently  of  any  other. 
We  have  already  alluded  to  the  special  requirements 
of  the  technician  ;  we  have  seen  that  some  require  a 
knowledge  of  the  structure  or  of  certain  aspects  of  one 
or  more  languages. 

Such  people,  having  entirely  different  aims,  require 
entirely  different  methods  ;  they  must  be  furnished 
with  everything  that  will  facilitate  their  work  of 
analysis  or  synthesis,  and  we  may  omit  from  their 
programme  everything  which  does  not  lead  directly 
towards  the  limited  and  special  end  they  have  in 
view. 

Yet  another  factor  is  present  and  must  be  considered 
before  we  can  draw  up  any  definite  programme  of  study. 
Are  we  giving  a  three  months'  course  or  a  three  years' 
course  ?  If  we  are  to  obtain  concrete  and  definite 
results  in  a  limited  space  of  time,  our  course  must 
necessarily  be  an  intensive  one ;  we  shall  have  to  make  a 
generous  use  of  studial  methods  ;  we  shall  not  be  able 
to  afford  anything  like  an  adequate  period  of  prepara- 
tion ;  we  shall  be  forced  to  take  short  cuts  and  we  shall 
reluctantly  be  compelled  to  sacrifice  a  certain  measure 
of  soundness  to  the  requirements  of  speed.  If,  however, 
at  the  end  of  the  short  course  to  which  circumstances 
limit  our  student's  opportunity,  he  has  a  chance  to  con- 
tinue his  studies  by  himself  or  to  reside  in  the  country 
where  the  language  is  spoken,  we  may  devote  the  whole 
of  our  time  to  preparatory  work.  We  may  give  him 
an  intensive  course  of  ear  -  training,  articulation,  or 
fluency  exercises,  cause  him  to  memorize  a  certain 
number  of  key-sentences,  and  drill  him  into  good  habits 
of  language-study.  If  we  adopted  this  plan  v/e  should 
be  laying  the  foundations  upon  which  the  student  would 
build  later  by  his  own  initiative,   but  the  drawback 

64 


THE  STUDENT  AND  HIS   AIM 

would  be  that  the  student  would  have  made  but 
small  progress  in  the  actual  process  of  assimilating 
vocabulary;  he  would  be  well  prepared,  but  would 
have  little  to  show  as  a  result  of  his  two  or  three 
months'  work. 

If,  on  the  other  hand,  we  know  that  we  have  a  clear 
period  of  two  or  more  years  before  us,  our  task  will  be 
much  easier.     Instead  of  proceeding  at  a  breathless  rate 
to  produce  immediate  concrete  results,  we  may  go  to     , 
work  in  a  more  leisurely  and  more  natural  way.     We     ' 
may  sow,  and  be  assured  that  the  harvest  will  be  reaped 
in  due  time  ;  the  natural  powers  of  language-study  work 
surely  but  not  rapidly  ;   nature  takes  her  time  but  yields    ; 
a  generous  interest.     With  a  long  period  in  front  of  us,  / 
we  may  afford  adequate  intervals  for  '  incubation ' ;   it  [ 
will  not  be  necessary  for  us  to  accelerate  the  normal  j 
process  of  assimilation,  but  merely  to  let  it  develop  in  \ 
a   gradual   but    ever-increasing   and    cumulative    ratio. 
At  the  end    of,  let  us  say,  the  first  year,  our  student 
will  easily  outstrip  those  whose  initial  progress  seemed 
more  satisfactory. 

Evidently  it  will  not  be  possible  to  draw  up  a  pro- 
gramme of  study  which  will  be  suitable  for  all  the 
diverse  requirements  we  have  set  forth.  Nor  will  it  be 
possible  for  every  teacher  to  consider  the  individual 
requirements  of  each  one  of  his  pupils.  We  cannot  have 
a  specially  printed  course,  nor  even  a  manuscript  one, 
for  every  student;  but  in  the  case  of  private  lessons 
or  of  self-instruction  we  may  certainly  give  a  large 
amount  of  consideration  to  individual  needs.  The  bad 
pronouncer  will  concentrate  on  phonetic  work,  the 
bad  speller  on  orthographic  work,  the  bad  listener 
on  devices  leading  towards  immediate  comprehension  ; 
the  clerk  will  work  with  texts  of  a  commercial 
5  65 


THE  PRINCIPLES   OF  LANGUAGE-STUDY 

nature,  the  tourist  will  specialize  on  hotel  colloquial, 
etc.  No  student  will  ever  be  expected  to  work 
with  one  book  only ;  each  will  gradually  acquire  a 
miniature  library,  and  this  library  need  not  be  the 
same  for  everybody. 

In  the  case  of  collective  courses  and  class  teaching, 
individual  requirements  will  be  less  observed,  but  in 
drawing  up  the  programme  the  teacher  will  aim  at  the 
average  result  desired  by^or  considered  desirable  for  the 
average  member  of  the  class.  As  we  shall  see  later,  it  is 
quite  feasible  to  design  lessons  suitable  for  a  class  con- 
taining pupils  of  different  capacities  ;  we  can  arrange 
that  some  shall  take  an  active  part  while  others  are 
assimilating  more  or  less  passively. 

We  see,  in  short,  that  when  starting  a  new  course 
under  new  conditions  the  teacher  must  draw  up  a 
programme.  This  programme  will  be  divided  into 
so  many  periods  or  stages,  and  for  each  period  certain 
forms  of  work  will  be  specified,  these  being-'designed 
to  lead  in  the  most  efficient  way  to  whatever  the 
aim  may  happen  to  be.  Without  such  a  programme 
the  teacher  will  never  know  exactly  where  his  class 
stands,  the  work  will  be  too  much  of  a  hand-to-mouth 
nature,  and  there  will  be  loose  ends.  This  programme 
may  of  course  be  more  or  less  experimental  or  ten- 
tative ;  it  may  be  modified  in  accordance  with  the 
teacher's  experience  and  with  the  results  he  has  so  far 
obtained.  The  idea  of  a  hard-and-fast  programme 
does  not  commend  itself;  it  should,  on  the  contrary, 
be  more  or  less  elastic  in  order  that  it  m.ay  be  expanded 
or  contracted  according  to  circumstances.  Anything  in 
the  nature  of  a  '  patent  method  '  (guaranteed  to  work 
within  so  many  lessons)  suggests  quackery.  Our 
programme   should   be   something   other  than   a   rigid 

66 


THE  STUDENT  AND   HIS  AIM 

procedure  based  on  any  one  particular  principle,  however 
logical  that  principle  may  seem  to  be.  There  are  many 
logical  principles,  and  we  must  strive  to  incorporate  all 
of  them  into  whatever  programme  we  design.  We  shall 
treat  of  these  in  the  next  chapters. 


67 


CHAPTER  V 

THE   SUPREME   IMPORTANCE   OF  THE 
ELEMENTARY   STAGE 

BEFORE  examining  and  reviewing  the  principles 
of  language-study,  it  will  be  well  for  us  to  note 
one  important  point.  The  reader  ere  long  may 
protest  that  we  pay  no  attention  to  anything  except 
beginner's  work,  that  we  examine  no  evidence  bearing  on 
the  more  advanced  stages,  that  we  give  no  advice  nor 
offer  any  suggestions  concerning  the  work  of  the  second 
and  subsequent  years.  "  We  are  not  interested  in 
elementary  work,"  some  may  say  ;  "  what  we  require  is  a 
series  of  counsels  as  to  how  to  conduct  the  subsequent 
(and  more  difficult)  work." 

And  yet  we  shall  have  little  to  say  concerning  the  more 
advanced  course  ;  on  the  contrary,  we  shall  constantly 
lay  stress  and  insist  on  the  supreme  importance  of  the 
elementary  stage. 

It  is  the  first  lessons  that  count  ;  it  is  the  early  lessons 
which  are  going  to  determine  the  eventual  success  or 
failure  of  the  course.  As  the  bending  of  the  twig 
determines  the  form  of  the  tree,  as  on  the  foundations 
depends  the  stability  of  the  building,  so  also  will  the 
elementary  training  of  the  student  determine  his  sub- 
sequent success  or  failure. 

It  is  during  the  first  stage  that  we  can  secure  habits  of 
accuracy,  that  we  can  train  the  student  to  use  his  ears, 

68 


THE  ELEMENTARY  STAGE 

that  we  can  develop  his  capacities  of  natural  and  rapid 
assimilation,  that  we  can  foster  his  powers  of  observa- 
tion. Good  habits  are  easily  formed  (as  also  are  bad 
habits) ;  at  the  outset  of  his  studies  the  learner,  whoever 
he  may  be,  educated  or  illiterate,  child  or  adult,  enjoys 
the  advantage  of  a  plastic  mind ;  it  can  be  shaped 
according  to  our  will ;  we  can  train  it  to  form  good  and 
sound  habits  of  language-sjudy.  At  no  other  period  " 
shall  we  find  such  plasticity.!  Difficult,  almost  impossible, 
is  the  task  of  undoing  what  has  already  been  done,  of 
removing  faulty  habits  of  perception  and  of  replacing 
them  by  sound  ones.  The  student  who  has  passed 
through  an  unsound  elementary  course  finds  his  road 
to  progress  barred  ;  the  twig  has  been  badly  bent,  the 
foundations  have  been  badly  laid.  All  we  can  then  do  is 
to  endeavour  by  means  of  a  corrective  course  to  undo  the 
mischief  which  has  been  done,  and  a  thankless  task  it  is. 
No  amount  of  advanced  work  can  fully  compensate  or 
make  good  the  harm  which  has  been  wrought  by  the 
untrained  or  unwise  teacher.  It  is  too  late.  Certain 
habits  have  been  formed,  and  we  all  realize  what  it 
means  to  eradicate  a  bad  habit  and  to  replace  it  by  a 
good  one. 

What  are  some  of  these  bad  habits  ?  What  are  the 
most  characteristic  vicious  tendencies  which  have  been 
encouraged  by  an  unsound  elementary  stage  ?  Some  of 
these  are  positive,  others  are  negative.  In  some  cases 
the  student  has  acquired  bad  habits ;  in  others  he 
has  neglected  to  acquire  good  ones ;  often  the  two 
kinds  are  complementary  to  each  other.  We  find,  for 
instance,  that  he  has  neglected  to  train  his  ears,  he  has 
not  been  shown  what  to  observe  nor  how  to  observe. 
The  consequence  is  that  he  is  unaware  of  the  existence  of 
certain  foreign  sounds,  and  invariably  replaces  them  by 

69 


THE  PRINCIPLES   OF  LANGUAGE-STUDY 

absurd  or  impossible  imitations  based  on  the  sounds  of 
his  mother-tongue.  Instead  of  French  e  he  will  use 
English  ay  ;  instead  of  French  on  he  will  use  English 
ong  ;  a  trilled  r  will  be  replaced  by  an  English  fricative  r 
or  by  no  r  at  all. 

Lack  of  ear-training  will  cause  him  to  insert  imaginary 
sounds  where  there  are  none.  The  French  student  will 
introduce  an  r  (and  a  French  r  at  that  !)  in  words  such 
as  course  or  farm  ;  he  will  insert  a  weak  e  [9]  in  the  pi  of 
people  or  in  the  hi  of  able.  He  has  never  actually  heard 
such  sounds,  but  imagines  that  he  has  ;  his  ears  have  not 
been  trained  to  observe.  He  has  formed  the  habit  of 
replacing  ear-impressions  by  eye-impressions ;  he  believes 
what  his  eyes  tell  him,  and  his  untrained  ears  cannot 
correct  the  tendency ;  he  has  become  the  dupe  of 
unphonetic  spellings. 

The  neglect  of  his  powers  of  audition  will  cause  him  to 
rely  absolutely  on  his  powers  of  visualizing  the  written 
form.  He  will  refuse  to  receive  the  language-matter  by 
the  auditory  channel ;  he  will  declare  with  insistence 
that  "  he  cannot  learn  a  word  or  a  sentence  until  he  has 
seen  it  written  "  ;  he  will  even  decline  to  learn  a  word 
except  in  its  traditional  (and  probably  phonetically 
inaccurate)  orthographic  form. 

If  the  elementary  course  has  not  provided  for  the 
development  and  use  of  the  powers  of  unconscious 
assimilation,  the  student  will  attempt  the  hopeless 
task  of  passing  the  whole  of  the  language-material 
through  his  limited  channel  of  consciousness.  He 
^\^ll  seek  to  concentrate  his  attention  on  every  simple 
unit  of  which  the  foreign  language  is  composed,  and 
hope  thereby  to  retain  every  one,  a  feat  of  memory 
which  we  know  to  be  impossible.  He  will  therefore 
have  formed  the  habit  of  deliberately   avoiding  that 

70 


THE   ELEMENTARY  STAGE 

natural  process  which  alone  will  enable  him  to  make 
effective  progress. 

He  will  also  have  formed  the  '  isolating  '  habit,  which 
consists  in  learning  the  individual  elements  of  a  group 
instead  of  learning  the  group  as  it  stands.  He  will 
learn  chaise  instead  of  la  chaise,  alii  instead  of  suis  alii  or 
est  alii.  In  other  terms,  he  will  have  formed  the  habit  of 
word-learning  and  have  neglected  that  of  word-group- 
learning.  Hence,  instead  of  having  at  his  disposal  a 
number  of  useful  compounds  such  as  Je  ne  le  lui  ai  pas 
donni,  II  rCy  en  a  pas  de  ce  coti-ci,  or  A  cette  ipoque-ci,  he 
will  endeavour  laboriously  and  generally  unsuccessfully 
to  build  up  by  some  synthetic  process  (probably  that  of 
literal  translation)  every  word-group,  phrase,  or  sentence 
in  the  language. 

Had  his  elementary  course  included  the  systematic 
memorizing  of^word-groujps,  this  would  have  become 
a  habit ;  as  it  is,  he  has  acquired  the  habit  of  not 
doing  so. 

Bad  semantic  habits  may  also  have  been  formed. 
That  is  to  say,  the  student  may  have  trained  himself 
(or  even  may  have  been  trained)  to  consider  that  each 
foreign  word  corresponds  precisely  to  some  word  in  his 
own  language.  For  him  prendre  is  the  exact  equivalent 
of  to  take  ;  to  get  is  an  untranslatable  word,  and  many 
foreign  words  are  meaningless  ! 

If  translation  (not  in  itself  a  bad  habit)  has  been 
carried  to  extremes,  and  if  the  habit  of  direct 
association  has  been  neglected,  the  student  will  have 
formed  the  habit  of  translating  mentally  everything 
that  he  hears  or  reads,  and  this  will  be  fatal  to 
subsequent  progress. 

The  principle  of  gradation  may  have  been  faultily 
applied    in    different    ways.     The    teacher    may    have 

71 


THE  PRINCIPLES   OF  LANGUAGE-STUDY 

considered  it  his  duty  to  over-articulate  his  words,  to 
pause  before  each  word,  and  to  speak  under  the  normal 
speed  of  five  syllables  per  second.  In  this  case  the 
student  will  have  formed  the  habit  of  understanding  no 
form  of  speech  other  than  this  artificialized  type.  The 
capacity  for  understanding  normal,  rapid,  and  even 
under-articulated  speech  can  only  be  developed  by 
exercise  in  listening  to  such  speech,  and  he  will  not  have 
had  this  exercise. 

The  elementary  programme  may  also  have  been  drawn 
up  in  such  a  way  as  to  preclude  the  study  of  irregular 
forms.  If  this  has  been  the  case,  the  student,  un- 
prepared for  irregularities,  will  not  know  how  to  deal 
with  them,  and  his  rate  of  progress  will  be  correspond- 
ingly diminished  when  they  occur  in  more  advanced 
work. 

These  are  some  of  the  bad  habits,  positive  and  negative, 
which  will  result  from  an  unsound  elementary  course  ; 
these  will  be  some  of  the  fruits  of  early  lessons  which  have 
not  been  based  on  the  essential  principles  of  language- 
teaching. 

One  of  the  functions  of  an  elementary  course  is  to 
enable  the  student  to  make  use,  even  if  only  in  a  rudi- 
mentary way,  of  the  language  he  is  learning.  It  is 
therefore  maintained  by  some  that  any  form  what- 
ever of  teaching  which  leads  to  such  result  may  be 
considered  as  satisfactory.  On  these  grounds  it 
might  be  urged  that,  as  pidgin-speech  is  better  than 
no  speech  at  all,  we  should  at  the  outset  aim  at 
pidgin,  and  leave  it  to  the  more  advanced  stage  to 
convert  this  type  of  speech  into  the  normal  variety  as 
used  by  the  natives. 

But  those  who  may  hold  this  view  forget  that 
the    elementary    course    has   a  second    and    more   im- 

72 


THE  ELEMENTARY  STAGE 

portant  function,  viz.  so  to  prepare  the  student 
that  his  subsequent  rate  of  progress  shall  constantly 
increase. 

The  quantity  of  matter  contained  in  even  the  everyday 
language  is  great — greater  than  most  of  us  generally 
imagine.  Not  only  are  there  thousands  of  words,  but 
the  majority  of  these  consist  of  a  group  of  allied 
forms,  declensional,  conjugational,  and  derivative. 
Very  many  words  also  stand  for  two,  three,  or 
more  different  meanings ;  moreover,  the  meaning  of 
any  word  is  influenced  by  the  presence  of  other 
words  in  the  same  sentence.  Were  the  beginner 
able  to  see  in  advance  the  full  extent  of  the  work 
that  lies  before  him,  he  might  abandon  his  task  at 
the  outset. 

The  work  of  assimilating  this  enormous  mass  of 
language  -  stuff  will  certainly  never  be  accomplished 
on  retail  lines ;  it  will  not  be  done  by  mere  efforts 
of  analysis,  synthesis,  and  eye-work.  Unless  the  rate  of 
progress  increases  continuously,  unless  the  principle  of 
gradation  is  observed  strictly,  there  is  no  prospect  of  the 
student  gaining  that  mastery  of  the  language  which  is 
his  aim. 

It  is  the  elementary  stage,  long  or  short,  which  will 
prepare  the  student  for  this  increasing  rate  of  progress, 
and  an  elementary  course  which  has  not  so  prepared  the 
student  caimot  be  said  to  have  accomplished  its  purpose. 
It  is  during  the  elementary  stage  that  we  turn  out  the 
good  or  the  bad  worker.  The  function  of  the  first  lessons 
is  not  only  to  teach  the  language,  but,  more  important 
still,  to  teach  the  student  how  to  learn. 

When  we  have  instilled  into  him  the  habits  of 
correct  observation,  of  using  his  ears,  of  using  his 
capacities  for  unconscious  assimilation,  of  forming  direct 

73 


THE  PRINCIPLES   OF  LANGUAGE-STUDY 

associations — in  short,  when  we  have  taught  him  how 
to  learn — the  subsequent  stages  may  safely  be  left  to 
the  student  and  to  nature.  Let  us  take  care  of  the 
elementary  stage,  and  the  advanced  stage  will  take 
care  of  itself. 


74 


CHAPTER  VI 
THE  PRINCIPLES  OF  LANGUAGE-TEACHING 

THE  art  of  met  hod- writing  (or  of  course-designing, 
which  is  not  very  different)  is  in  its  infancy ;  it 
has  all  the  marks  of  the  early  or  even  primitive 
stage  ;  it  is  in  a  state  of  slow  evolution  comparable  to 
that  which  characterized  the  gradual  perfecting  of  me- 
chanical inventions  and  devices  such  as  the  typewriter, 
the  bicycle,  or  the  calculating  machine.  In  the  early 
stages  of  each  of  these  (and  many  similar  things)  each 
model  was  more  or  less  rudimentary  and  clumsy.  A 
dozen  different  inventors  working  individually  produced 
a  dozen  different  machines  ;  although  all  designed  to 
accomplish  the  same  work,  the  means  adopted  in  each 
case  differed  fundamentally.  In  1890  it  was  possible  to 
distinguish  even  at  a  distance  the  make  of  any  particular 
bicycle.  At  the  present  day  we  can  still  see  great 
differences  of  stiTicture  between  the  different  makes  of 
typewriters  and  calculating  machines.  As  time  goes  on, 
however,  we  notice  a  gradual  convergence  of  types  ; 
one  inventor  profits  by  the  w^ork  of  others ;  in  spite  of 
the  laws  of  patent,  certain  improvements  are  copied  or 
adapted,  individual  defects  are  gradually  eliminated  and 
devices  or  dispositions  which  have  proved  their  worth 
are  adopted.  The  tendency  is  always  towards  the  more 
perfect  type,  the  more  efficient  apparatus  ;  and  the 
path  towards  perfection  is  marked  by  an  ever-growing 

^^5 


THE   PRINCIPLES   OF  LANGUAGE- STUDY 

convergence  of  types.  The  ideal  appears  to  be  reached 
when  there  is  practically  no  scope  for  further  improve- 
ments ;  by  that  time  the  theoretical  principles  have 
been  worked  out  and  have  become  common  property  ; 
what  divergences  do  continue  to  exist  are  not  concerned 
with  essentials,  they  are  merely  variations  of  equal 
value.  Were  we  to  ask  a  hundred  different  bicycle- 
makers  or  boat-builders  to  design  what  they  considered 
an  ideal  model,  the  hundred  resultant  models  would  be 
for  all  practical  purposes  identical. 

Now,  if  we  asked  a  hundred  different  language-teachers 
to  design  what  each  considered  an  ideal  course  or  text- 
book, the  result  at  the  present  day  would  certainly  be 
a  hundred  different  courses.  They  would  differ  in  every 
conceivable  way ;  most  of  them  w^ould  differ  from  the 
others  fundamentally.  This  would  prove  that  the  art  in 
question  is  in  a  very  early  stage ;  it  would  prove  that 
few  or  no  fundamental  principles  are  generally  recog- 
nized. If,  however,  at  some  date  in  the  distant  future 
we  were  to  make  the  same  request,  restricting  our 
invitation  to  those  who  will  have  made  a  special  study 
of  the  subject,  to  those  who  will  have  been  striving 
towards  perfection,  we  should  probably  find  no  great 
degree  of  diversity  in  the  treatment ;  we  should  see  the 
converging  tendency  at  work,  and  should  gather  that 
the  fundamental  principles  were  beginning  to  stand  out 
and  to  be  respected.  In  the  yet  more  distant  future  the 
answer  to  our  request  might  take  the  form  of  a  hundred 
manuscripts,  all  essentially  the  same,  and  differing  only 
in  non-essential  details  ;  w^e  should  then  know  that  the 
fundamental  principles  had  been  established  and  had 
been  accepted,  but  by  that  time  none  but  experts  in  the 
subject  will  ever  venture  to  carry  out  such  highly 
technical  work. 

76 


PRINCIPLES   OF  LANGUAGE-TEACHING 

Much  time  will  probably  elapse  before  we  arrive  at 
this  desirable  state  of  things  ;  much  error  will  have  to 
be  eliminated  and  much  experimental  work  will  have  to  be 
accomplished.  We  shall  have  to  ascertain  exactly  what 
does  take  place  when  we  learn,  and  exactly  what  are 
the  mental  processes  involved.  We  shall  then  have  to 
grope  about  and  feel  our  way,  adopting  and  rejecting, 
modifying  and  adapting,  improving  and  perfecting.  We 
shall  have  to  co-ordinate  our  efforts  so  that  each  may 
profit  by  the  success  or  failure  of  fellow- workers ;  we 
shall  have  to  experiment  under  all  sorts  of  conditions, 
with  all  sorts  of  learners,  and  with  all  sorts  of  languages. 
There  are  distinct  signs  to-day  that  this  kind  of  co- 
operation is  coming  about.  We  see,  for  instance,  that 
the  branch  of  language-study  concerned  with  pronuncia- 
tion is  already  far  advanced  in  the  experimental  stage. 
For  years  past  phoneticians  have  been  busily  engaged 
in  research  work  ;  at  first  working  apart,  they  are  now 
coming  together  and  pooling  their  efforts,  each  profiting 
by  the  discoveries  of  the  others.  A  universal  termin- 
ology is  coming  into  existence  ;  a  universal  phonetic 
alphabet  is  well  on  its  way  ;  the  principles  of  phonetics 
and  of  phonetic  transcription  are  developing  rapidly,  and 
the  inevitable  experts'  quarrels  are  becoming  more  and 
more  confined  to  matters  of  detail  and  to  non-essentials. 
The  remarkable  advance  in  this  comparatively  new 
science  is  one  of  the  most  hopeful  signs  of  progress,  and 
a  pledge  of  eventual  perfection. 

A  similar  advance  in  the  sister  sciences  such  as  gram- 
mar and  semantics  is  not  yet  apparent,  but  there  are 
signs  that  ere  long  the  many  isolated  workers  in  these 
domains  will  be  able  to  do  what  the  phoneticians  did 
twenty  or  thirty  years  ago  ;  j:hey  will  enlist  new  workers, 
they  will  open  up  the  field  of  research,  they  will  draw 

77 


THE  PRINCIPLES   OF  LANGUAGE-STUDY 

up,  first  tentatively  and  then  decisively,  the  broad 
principles  on  which  the  experimental  and  constructive 
work  will  repose,  there  will  be  co-ordinated  and  co- 
operative effort  in  many  countries,  and  we  shall  witness 
the  coming  into  existence  of  the  general  science  of 
linguistics. 

In  the  meantime,  the  subject  is  engaging  the  attention  ^ 
of  psychologists.  Strangely  enough,  the  psychologists, 
whose  function  it  is  to  ascertain  how  we  learn,  have  not 
been  consulted  by  writers  of  language-courses,  and  few 
of  them  have  ever  intervened  in  the  matter.  Each 
language-teacher  has  had  to  feel  his  way  as  best  he 
could,  proceeding  empirically,  dabbling  in  psychology, 
which  meant  that  he  did  not  always  apply  and  often 
misinterpreted  whatever  principles  of  the  subject  he 
may  have  picked  up.  There  are  signs  that  speech- 
psychologists  are  about  to  co-ordinate  their  efforts  with 
those  of  the  phoneticians  and  with  the  experience  of 
those  who  are  actively  engaged  in  making  their  language- 
teaching  more  efficient.  We  can  point  to  more  than  one 
centre  both  in  England  and  abroad  where  this  co-opera- 
tion is  in  its  initial  stage,  and  once  this  co-operation 
becomes  an  accomplished  fact  progress  will  be  very  rapid, 
and  the  progress  will  be  sound.  The  work  of  Sweet,  ofl 
Jespersen,  and  of  de  Saussure  (to  cite  only  three  ofl 
our  modern  leaders)  has  already  paved  the  way  for  the 
new  and  growing  contingent  of  workers  who  are  pre- 
pared to  take  up  the  threads  and  to  weave  them  together 
in  the  fabric  of  the  future. 

What  are  the  principles  of  language-study  so  far 
evolved  ?  What  are  the  fundamental  axioms  so  far 
postulated  ?  Do  they  give  us  the  impression  of  sound- 
ness ?  Do  they  appear  to  us  to  be  reasonable  ?  Do. 
they  bear  the  aspect  of  finality  ?     We  shall  judge.     We  - 

78 


PRINCIPLES   OF  LANGUAGE-TEACHING 

shall  endeavour  to  formulate  the  leading  principles  which 
have  resulted  from  long  periods  of  experimental  worl^ 
so  far  carried  on  by  individual  workers.  The  list  will 
probably  not  be  exhaustive,  nor  will  the  items  be  pre- 
sented in  that  perfectly  logical  sequence  which  the  future 
reserves  for  it.  It  will,  however,  seek  to  embody  the 
largest  number  of  important  precepts  under  the  smallest 
number  of  headings,  in  order  that  we  may  see  in  a  concise 
form  something  which  is  still  evolving  and  progressing 
towards  further  efficiency  and  simplicity.  We  purposely 
omit  from  the  list  certain  minor  principles  and  modes 
of  application,  nor  can  particular  details  connected  with 
the  study  of  particular  languages  be  well  included  in 
the  present  work. 

At  the  present  day  nine  essential  principles  seem  to 
stand  out  fairly  clearly,  and  may  provisionally  be  named 
as  follows  : 

(1)  Initial  preparation. 

(2)  Habit-forming. 

(3)  Accuracy. 

(4)  Gradation. 

(5)  Proportion. 

(6)  Concreteness. 

(7)  Interest. 

(8)  Order  of  progression. 

(9)  Multiple  line  of  approach. 

We  append  a  brief  definition  or  broad  description  of 
these  principles,  and  reserve  for  the  following  chapters 
a  detailed  explanation  of  each  of  them. 

(1)  Initial  Preparation. — During  the  initial  stages  of 
the  course  the  teacher  will,  if  necessary,  endeavour  by 
means  of  appropriate  forms  of  exercise  to  awaken 
and  to  develop  the  student's   natural   or  spontaneous 

79 


THE   PRINCIPLES   OF  LANGUAGE- STUDY 

capacities  for  language-study,  in  order  that  he  may  be 
adequately  prepared  for  his  subsequent  work. 

(2)  Habit-forming. — Language-study  is  essentially  a 
habit -forming  process  ;  the  teacher  will  therefore  not 
only  assist  the  student  in  utilizing  his  previously  formed 
habits,  but  will  also  cause  him  to  acquire  new  ones  ap- 
propriate to  the  work  he  is  to  perform. 

(3)  Accuracy. — No  form  of  Avork  is  to  be  adopted 
which  may  lead  to  inaccurate  habits  of  language-using, 
for  habit-forming  without  accuracy  means  the  forming 
of  bad  habits. 

(4)  Gradation. — The  teacher  will  cause  the  student  to 
pass  from  the  known  to  the  unknown  by  easy  stages, 
each  of  which  will  serve  as  a  preparation  for  the  next, 
and  thereby  secure  a  constantly  increasing  rate  of 
progress. 

(5)  Proportion. — The  various  aspects  of  language  {i.e. 
understanding,  speaking,  reading,  and  writing)  as  well 
as  the  various  branches  of  the  study  {i.e.  phonetics,  ortho- 
graphy, etymology,  syntax,  and  semantics)  to  receive  an 
appropriate  measure  of  attention. 

(6)  Concreteness. — The  student  will  proceed  from  the 
concrete  to  the  abstract,  and  will  therefore  be  furnished 
with  an  abundance  of  well-chosen  examples. 

(7)  Interest. — The  methods  are  to  be  devised  in  such 
a  way  that  the  interest  of  the  student  is  always  secured, 
for  without  interest  there  can  be  little  progress. 

(8)  Order  of  Progression. — The  student  should  first  be 
taught  to  hear  and  to  articulate  correctly,  then  to  use 
sentences,  then  to  make  sentences,  then  to  make  {i.e.  to 
inflect  or  to  derive)  w^ords.  In  this  way  he  will  secure 
rapid  and  yet  permanent  results. 

(9)  Multiple  Line  of  Approach. — The  language  should 
be  approached  simultaneously  from  many  different  sides 

80 


PRINCIPLES   OF  LANGUAGE-TEACHING 

in  many  different  ways,  by  means  of  many  different 
forms  of  work. 

Text-books  may  differ  in  the  sort  of  material  supplied  ; 
teachers  may  differ  in  their  mode  of  presentation  ;  there 
will  be  room  for  individuality  and  personality.  For 
years  to  come  we  shall  not  secure  perfect  uniformity  and 
ideal  results,  but  if  these  nine  essential  principles  are 
understood  and  reasonably  well  observed  by  the  method- 
writer,  course-designer,  and  teacher,  the  resultant  teach- 
ing is  bound  to  be  good  and  the  results  are  bound  to  be 
satisfactory. 


81 


CHAPTER  VII 

INITIAL   PREPARATION 

IN  the  first  chapter  we  have  seen  that  each  of  us, 
child  or  adult,  possesses  in  either  an  active  or  a 
latent  state  certain  capacities  for  the  spontaneous 
assimilation  of  the  spoken  and  colloquial  form  of  any- 
given  language,  native  or  foreign.  In  the  case  of  the 
young  child,  these  capacities  are  in  an  active  state  and 
at  his  immediate  service,  he  does  not  require  to  be 
trained  in  their  use  ;  in  the  case  of  the  average  adult, 
these  capacities  are  in  a  latent  state,  they  have  fallen 
into  disuse,  they  are  not  at  his  immediate  service,  he 
must  train  himself  to  use  them,  he  must  learn  how  to 
learn. 

In  the  first  place,  he  must  realize  that  language- 
learning  (within  the  scope  of  our  definition)  is  an  art  and 
not  a  science  ;  to  become  proficient  in  an  art  is  to  acquire 
the  capacity  for  doing  something  ;  to  become  proficient 
in  a  science  is  to  acquire  knowledge  concerning  something. 
So  long  as  the  student  treats  language-study  as  a  science 
he  will  make  little  or  no  progress  in  the  art  of  using 
language. 

Now,  there  are  two  possible  ways  of  acquiring  pro- 
ficiency in  an  art ;  the  one  consists  in  applying  theory, 
the  other  consists  in  persistent  efforts  to  imitate  the 
successful  performances  of  otljers.  Let  us  say  that  the 
student  wishes  to  use  the  French  equivalent  of  '  she 

82 


INITIAL  PREPARATION 

went.'  By  the  method  of  theory  he  will  remember  that 
past  actions  are  generally  expressed  by  the  French  pdsse 
indSflni  (or  perfect) ;  he  will  then  remember  that  this 
tense  is  formed  by  means  of  one  of  the  two  auxiliaries 
plus  the  past  participle.  His  knowledge  of  theory  will 
tell  him  to  derive  from  the  infinitive  aller  the  past 
pai-ticiple  alii  ;  theory  will  also  tell  him  that  this  parti- 
cular verb  requires  the  auxiliary  ttre  and  not  avoir,  and 
that  the  present  tense  third  person  singular  of  etre  is 
est.  If  he  is  writing  the  sentence,  he  must  remember 
that  the  participle  must  in  this  case  agree  with  the 
subject  and  be  spelt  alUe. 

By  the  method  of  practice  he  will  merely  reproduce  by 
imitation  the  sentence  elle  est  alUe,  which  sentence  he 
will  have  had  occasions  of  learning  or  of  reading.  In 
both  cases  there  is  the  possibility  of  error  ;  the  theory 
may  be  imperfectly  known  and  one  or  more  links  in  the 
chain  of  reasoning  may  be  weak,  or  the  sentence  may 
have  been  badly  memorized. 

First  attempts  at  imitation  are  sometimes  inaccurate  ; 
our  initial  attempts  at  reproducing  are  occasionally  un- 
successful ;  we  wish  to  produce  a  foreign  sound  we  have 
just  heard,  but  utter  a  native  sound  instead  ;  we  wish 
to  produce  a  foreign  sentence,  but  construct  it  wrongly  ; 
w^e  wish  to  express  a  certain  thought,  and  fail  to  hit  upon 
the  right  word.  For  this  reason  the  method  of  practice 
iS  often  termed  the  methatlfof  trial  and  error.  We  are 
told  that  some  of  our  efforts  will  be  successful  and  others 
unsuccessful,  and  that  in  the  course  of  practice  we  shall 
gradually  eliminate  the  unsuccessful  ones.  We  are  even 
told  that  it  is  only  by  making  mistakes  that  we  learn 
not  to  make  them.  Although  we  may  admit  a  modicum 
of  truth  in  this  somewhat  hyperbolical  dictum,  we  would 
suggest  that  it  is  liable  to  misinterpretation.     Nor  is 

83 


THE  PRINCIPLES   OF  LANGUAGE- STUDY 

the  term  trial  and  error  an  ideal  one  from  the  language- 
teacher's  point  of  view. 

In  both  cases  there  is  an  implication  that  all  successful 
attempts  must  necessarily  be  preceded  by  unsuccessful 
ones,  which  is  not  only  untrue  but  unsound  pedagogy. 
The  literal  interpretation  of  the  term  and  doctrine  may 
induce  a  sort  of  fatalistic  attitude,  and  the  principle  of 
accuracy  (which  we  shall  deal  with  later)  will  suffer  in 
consequence.  It  may  provide  teacher  and  student  with 
an  easy  pretext  to  condone  careless  work.  The  student 
may  say,  "  Since  it  appears  that  error  must  precede 
perfection,  I  will  not  unduly  strive  towards  accuracy." 
The  teacher  may  say,  "  Since  psychologists  tell  us  that 
error  is  inevitable,  I  will  allow  my  pupil  to  do  inaccurate 
work." 

It  may  be  true  that  some  forms  of  inaccuracy  in  certain 
conditions  tend  to  eliminate  themselves  in  the  course  of 
time  and  practice,  but  it  is  certainly  true  that  errors 
also  tend  to  become  habitual,  and  no  psychologist  has 
ever  maintained  that  the  forming  of  bad  habits  is  a 
necessary  step  towards  the  acquisition  of  good  ones. 
We  would  lay  stress  on  this  point,  for  there  seems  to 
be  a  real  danger  in  the  misapplication  of  such  terms  as 
'  trial  and  error,'  '  the  selection  of  the  successful  and 
the  rejection  of  the  unsuccessful  efforts,'  '  practice 
makes  perfect,'  etc.  Misunderstanding  on  this  point 
has  caused  many  teachers  to  encourage,  and  many 
students  to  acquire,  pidgin-speech,  and  to  consider  it 
as  the  inevitable  or  even  indispensable  prelude  to 
normal  speech. 

In  the  present  chapter  we  are  inquiring  what  are  the 
processes  of  nature  and  how  we  may  train  the  student 
to  observe  them.  We  have  just  seen  that  there  is  a 
method  of  theory  and  a  method  of  practice  ;   it  is  fairly 

84 


INITIAL  PREPARATION 

evident  that  the  latter  is  a  natural  process  and  that  the 
former  is  not.  We  will  now  proceed  to  set  forth  another 
pair  of  rival  processes  and  determine  which  is  the  one 
followed  by  the  natural  language-teaching  forces. 

When  we  are  young  we  form  new  habits  with  facility ; 
a  new  sort  of  work  has  to  be  performed,  and  we  proceed 
to  acquire  the  new  habit  which  will  enable  us  to  perform 
it.  When  we  are  older  we  form  new  habits  with  greater 
difficulty  and  certainly  with  greater  reluctance.  We 
make  all  sorts  of  efforts  (generally  unconsciously)  to 
avoid  forming  a  new  habit,  for  in  some  respects  the 
adult  seems  to  dread  novelty. 

A  new  sort  of  work  has  to  be  performed,  and  instead  of 
acquiring  the  new  habit  or  habits  which  will  perform  it 
we  select  habits  already  formed  and  strive  to  make  them 
do  the  new  work.  Let  us  take  a  few  examples  in  order 
to  realize  what  this  means.  Suppose  we  wish  to  make 
Chinese  characters  with  a  native  writing-brush.  This 
is  a  new  sort  of  work  ;  in  order  to  do  it  successfully  we 
must  hold  the  brush  vertically  in  a  way  we  have  never 
held  a  brush  before  ;  we  must  form  a  new  brush-holding 
and  brush-using  habit.  But  the  average  European  adult 
will  strive  to  use  the  brush  and  to  trace  the  characters 
by  holding  the  brush  as  he  holds  a  pen  ;  he  will  be  using 
the  known  pen-holding  habit  instead  of  acquiring  the 
unlaiown  habit  of  holding  a  writing-brush. 

Or  we  wish  to  learn  to  pronounce  the  vowel  generally 
represented  in  French  by  i.  This  will  require  a  muscular 
habit  unknown  to  the  average  Englishman.  What  does 
he  do  ?  He  seeks  immediately  to  replace  the  required 
new  effort  by  a  known  effort — and  replaces  the  French  e 
by  the  EngHsh  ay.  If  this  is  too  unsatisfactory  he  will 
strive  to  modify  his  ay  until  it  seems  to  resemble  suffi- 
ciently the  required  sound.     Similarly,  he  will  substitute 

85 


THE  PRINCIPLES   OF  LANGUAGE- STUDY 

for  French  au,  u,  or  on,  English  o  (as  in  'boat'),  ew 
(as  in  '  new '),  and  ong. 

Or  the  English  adult  student  may  wish  to  learn  to  use 
French  word-groups  or  sentences,  in  which  case  we  shall 
almost  invariably  find  that  he  only  learns  to  use  those 
which  correspond  most  nearly  to  English  constructions  ; 
he  prefers  to  adapt  his  known  syntax-habits  rather  than 
form  new  ones. 

Now  children  have  not  this  same  reluctance  to  form 
new  habits,  either  because  their  minds  are  more  plastic. 
i.e.  they  are  so  used  to  forming  new  habits  that  a 
few  more  do  not  incommode  them,  or  because  they  are 
not  clever  or  intelligent  enough  to  make  the  necessary 
selection  from  their  stock  of  acquired  habits. 

Language-learning  is  essentially  a  habit-forming  pro- 
cess, a  process  during  which  we  must  acquire  rvew  habits. 
It  is,  then,  one  of  the  cases  where  we  cannot  always 
proceed  from  the  known  to  the  unknown  in  the  more 
obvious  sense  of  the  term;  we  must  often  consent  to 
plunge  (or  be  plunged)  straight  into  the  unknoAvn. 

The  most  important  thing  we  have  to  do,  then,  is  to 
train  the  student  to  form  new  habits  and  to  cause  him 
to  refrain  from  adapting  his  old  ones  in  cases  where  we 
know  that  such  adaptation  will  be  fruitless.  We  make 
this  last  qualification  advisedly,  because  there  are 
certain  cases  where  successful  adaptation  is  possible. 
A  foreign  language  is  not  wholly  different  from  our  own 
tongue,  and  where  identity  exists  obviously  no  new  habit 
is  required.  (We  must,  however,  see  that  the  student 
selects  the  right  previously  acquired  habit,  that  is  to  say, 
the  nearest  native  equivalent.) 

The  capacity  of  forming  new  habits  of  observation, 
articulation,  inflexion,  compounding,  or  expression  for 
every  new  language  is  one  of  our  spontaneous  capacities, 

86 


INITIAL  PREPARATION 

and  the  student  must  when  necessary  be  taught  to  form 
such  new  habits. 

Another  very  characteristic  feature  of  the  natural 
process  is  unconscious  assimilation ;  we  learn  without 
knowing  that  we  are  learning.  What  we  therefore  have 
to  do  is  to  train  ourselves  (or  our  students)  consciously 
to  learn  unconsciously;  we  must  set  out  deliberately  top' 
inhibit  our  capacities  for  focusing  or  concentrating  our 
attention  on  the  language-material  itself.  Attention 
must  be  given  to  what  we  want  to  say  and  not  to  the  way 
we  say  it. 

How  shall  we  do  it  ? 

In  the  first  place  we  must  set  out  to  sharpen  our 
powers  of  receiving  and  retaining  knowledge  communi- 
cated to  us  orally.  This  may  be  difficult ;  we  have  be- 
come so  accustomed  to  acquiring  information  from  the 
written  word  via  the  eyes  that  we  feel  very  bewildered 
and  incapable  when  deprived  of  this  medium.  We  hear 
a  foreign  word  or  sentence,  and  this  auditory  impression 
is  such  a  rapid  and  transitory  one  that  we  feel  that  we 
cannot  possibly  retain  it  in  our  memory  ;  we  feel  that 
we  require  at  least  one  good  look  at  the  word  so  that  we 
may  hereafter  reproduce  in  our  imagination  the  written 
form.  But  we  must  resist  this  tendency  ;  we  must 
discipline  ourselves  to  forgo  this  artificial  aid  to  memory, 
for  ear-memory  cannot  be  cultivated  while  we  are 
visualizing.  If  we  truly  desire  to  tap  the  natural 
language-learning  energies  we  must  obey  nature  ;  we 
must  train  and  drill  our  ears  to  do  the  work  for  which 
they  were  intended.  If  we  make  up  our  minds  to  train 
our  ears  to  be  efficient  instruments  we  can  do  so  :  a  little 
patience,  a  little  practice,  and  we  shall  surely  regain  the 
power  that  we  had  allowed  to  lapse. 

The  exercises  we  use  in  order  to  sharpen  our  ear- 

87 


THE   PRINCIPLES   OF  LANGUAGE-STUDY 

perceptions  and  to  make  them  serve  us  may  be  termed 
'  ear-training  exercises.'  This  term  may  not  satisfy 
those  who  dehght  in  hair-splitting  definitions ;  they 
may  say,  "  We  cannot  train  our  ears,  but  we  can  train 
our  capacities  for  using  them " ;  but  the  term  is 
sufficiently  accurate  to  designate  what  we  mean  it  to 
designate. 

How  are  ear-training  exercises  performed  ?  There 
are  several  varieties.  The  simplest  of  all  is  this :  the 
teacher  articulates  various  sounds,  either  singly  or  in 
combination  with  others  ;  we  listen  to  these  sounds  and 
make  unconscious  efforts  to  reproduce  them  by  saying 
them  to  ourselves.  This  is  the  most  passive  and  most 
natural  form  of  ear-training  ;  we  did  it  years  ago  when 
lying  in  our  cradles  listening  to  the  sounds  made  by  the 
people  around  us.  If  the  teacher  systematizes  his  work,  so 
much  the  easier  will  it  be  for  us  who  are  training  our  ears. 

We  must  then  seek  to  recognize  or  identify  certain 

sounds    and    to    distinguish    them    from    others.     The 

teacher  may  write  (in  conventional  phonetic  symbols)  a 

series  of  sounds  on  the  blackboard  and  append  to  each 

a  conventional  number.     He  v/ill  articulate  a  sound  and 

ask  us  to  give  him  the  number  pertaining  to  it,  or  we 

may  go  up  to  the  blackboard  and  point  to  the  sound  we 

think  we  have  heard,   or  he  may  give  us   '  phonetic 

dictation,'  in  which  case  he  will  articulate  sounds  which 

we  must  writs"  down  by  means  of  these  conventional 

phonetic  symbols.     This  latter  process  has  the  advantage 

that  it  can  subsequently  be  extended  to  the  dictation  of 

syllables  or  words. ^ 

1  It  will  be  preferable  for  these  to  be  '  nonsense  words,'  that 
is  to  say,  artificial  words  with  no  meaning,  for  if  real  known  words 
are  articulated  to  us  we  may  possibly  write  down  not  the  sounds 
that  we  really  hear  biit  some  sort  of  ingenious  phonetic  trans- 
literation of  the  orthographic  form  of  the  word. 

88 


INITIAL  PREPARATION 

Other  forms  of  ear -training  exercises  may  be  devised  by 
those  who  are  engaged  in  carrying  out  such  work,  care 
being  taken  that  such  exercises  do  really  train  the  ears 
and  not  our  capacities  for  successful  guessing. 

If  you  wish  to  know  to  what  extent  such  exercises  do 
have  the  desired  effect,  go  through  a  short  course  of  ear- 
training  on  these  lines  and  you  will  yourself  be  a  witness 
to  their  efficacy. 

Ear-training  is  not  confined  to  isolated  sounds  and 
simple  combinations  of  sounds  ;  it  also  includes  the 
exercise  of  our  capacities  for  perceiving  or  retaining  long 
strings  of  syllables  such  as  sentences.  We  are  able  to  do 
this  in  the  case  of  our  mother-tongue,  and  there  is  no 
reason  why  we  should  not  soon  become  fairly  proficient 
in  doing  it  in  the  case  of  a  foreign  language. 

The  next  thing  in  importance  is  to  learn  how  to  arti- 
culate foreign  sounds,  singly,  in  simple  combinations,  or 
in  long  strings  of  syllables.  We  must  train  our  mouth 
and  our  vocal  organs  generally  ;  in  some  cases  we  must 
develop  certain  muscles  in  order  that  they  may  do  easily 
and  rapidly  what  is  required  of  them.  We  have  learnt 
to  do  this  in  the  case  of  our  mother-tongue,  and  we  can 
learn  to  do  the  same  for  sounds  which  are  so  far  unknown 
to  us.  It  is  never  too  late  in  life  to  develop  a  muscle  in 
order  that  it  may  perform  the  small  amount  of  work 
which  will  be  required  of  it.  We  must  go  through  a 
course  of  mouth-gymnastics  ;  if  we  are  disinclined  to  do 
so  it  means  that  we  are  disinclined  to  take  the  trouble  to 
tap  our  natural  language-learning  resources. 

What  are  articulation  exercises  ?  Like  ear-training 
exercises,  they  exist  in  many  varieties.  We  begin  by 
practising  on  known  sounds.  We  take  simple  sounds 
and  learn  to  prolong  them  for  a  few  seconds  or  to  utter 
them  rapidly,  and  we  practise  them  in  new  and  unfamiliar 

89 


THE  PRINCIPLES   OF  LANGUAGE- STUDY 

combinations.  We  are  shown  how  to  convert  voiced 
into  voiceless  sounds  and  vice  versa  ;  we  are  taught  how 
to  produce  sounds  which  are  intermediate  between  two 
known  sounds ;  we  are  shown  how  to  convert  known 
sounds  into  their  nasal,  lip-rounded,  or  palatalized 
forms,  etc.  We  are  trained  to  imitate  strange  noises  of 
all  sorts,  and  the  phonetician  is  ready  to  show  us  how 
to  make  them.  Our  ear-training  exercises  will  be  of 
assistance  to  us,  for  it  is  easier  to  articulate  sounds 
that  we  recognize  than  sounds  which  have  so  far  been 
unfamiliar  to  our  ears. 

At  a  more  advanced  stage,  articulation  exercises  grad- 
ually become  merged  into  '  fluency  exercises.'  When  we 
are  asked  to  articulate  a  given  string  of  syllables  so  many 
times  in  so  many  seconds  we  are  learning  to  become 
fluent,  to  connect  sound  with  sound  and  syllable  with 
syllable  without  ugly  gaps  and  awkward  Hesitations. 

While  ear-training  and  articulation  exercises  are  being 
carried  on  the  student  should  be  encouraged  to  develop 
his  powers  of  mimicry  ;  after  having  heard  on  many 
different  occasions  words  or  strings  of  words  uttered  by 
the  teacher  he  should  strive  to  become  at  least  as  pro- 
ficient as  parrots  and  phonograph  records  in  reproducing 
them  spontaneously.  The  term  imitation  is  not  adequate 
to  express  the  process  by  which  he  should  work  ;  what 
we  require  is  absolute  mimicry.  Sounds,  with  all  that 
appertains  to  them — pitch,  timbre,  length,  abniptness, 
drawl,  distinctness,  and  any  other  qualities  and  attributes 
possessed  by  them — should  be  mimicked  faithfully  and 
accurately  ;  little  or  no  distinction  should  be  made  by 
the  learner  between  the  characteristic  pronunciation  of 
the  language  he  is  learning  and  the  personal  pronuncia- 
tion of  his  teacher.  The  teacher,  indeed,  should  say  to 
the  student,  "  Don't  be  content  with  a  mere  reproduction 

90 


INITIAL  PREPARATION 

of  what  you  imagine  to  be  my  standard  of  pronuncia- 
tion ;   go  further  and  mimic  me." 

Ear-training,  articulation,  and  mimicry  exercises  will 
carry  us  a  long  way  towards  our  aim  ;  when  fairly  pro- 
ficient in  these,  we  shall  find  little  difficulty  in  reproduc- 
ing at  first  hearing  a  sentence  which  has  been  articulated  to 
us.  This  is  one  of  our  most  important  aims  ;  once  able 
to  do  this,  we  are  able  to  avail  ourselves  immediately  of 
one  of  the  most  valuable  channels  for  acquiring  the 
foreign  language ;  we  are  able  to  assimilate  foreign 
sentences  by  ear  ;  every  sentence  repeated  in  our  hearing 
will  have  its  due  effect  in  furthering  our  knowledge  of 
the  language  and  our  capacity  for  using  it. 

Anyone  who  is  unable  to  repeat  with  tolerable  accuracy 
any  sentence  he  has  just  heard  is  certainly  unable  to 
assimilate  the  foreign  language  by  spontaneous  methods. 
He  may  seek  to  compensate  this  inability  by  methods 
involving  the  imagery  of  the  written  word,  but  these 
methods  will  be  unnatural  ones  and  will  inhibit  the  de- 
velopment of  the  spontaneous  powers.  Anyone  who 
experiences  a  difficulty  in  repeating  a  foreign  sentence 
which  he  has  just  heard  will  be  severely  handicapped  in 
his  subsequent  work,  for  he  will  be  paying  attention  to 
his  hearing  and  articulation  when  he  should  be  devoting 
his  attention  to  other  things.  Indeed,  we  would  go  so  far 
as  to  say  that  the  power  of  correctly  reproducing  a  strings 
of  syllables  just  heard  is  one  of  the  essential  things  we ' 
must  possess  in  order  to  make  any  real  progress  in  the  j 
acquisition  of  the  spoken  language. 

It  is  this  power  which  enables  us  to  memorize  on  a  wide 
scale  sentences  and  similar  strings  of  words.  Whether 
we  like  it  or  not,  whether  the  prospect  is  encouraging  or 
not,  it  is  quite  certain  that  an  easy  command  of  the 
spoken  (and  even  of  the  written)  language  can  only  be 

91 


THE  PRINCIPLES   OF  LANGUAGE-STUDY 

gained  by  acquiring  the  absolute  mastery  of  thousands 
of  combinations,  regular  and  irregular.  We  shall  see 
later  that  certain  forms  of  synthetic  work  exist  which  will 
enable  us  to  form  correctly  an  almost  unlimited  number 
of  foreign  sentences  ;  we  shall  see  that  the  utilizing  of 
these  studial  forms  of  work  will  carry  us  very  far  on  our 
w^ay  to  acquire  the  language  ;  but,  ingenious  and  sound 
though  they  may  be,  they  will  not  replace  the  cruder  and 
more  primitive  process  of  memorizing  integrally  a  vast 
number  of  word-groups. 

Now  this  task  cannot  be  accomplished  by  means  of 
y  intensive  and  laborious  repetition  work  ;  it  cannot  be 
accomplished  by  the  traditional  methods  of  memorizing  ; 
book-work  and  perseverance  will  never  lead  us  to  the  goal 
of  our  memorizing  ambitions.  As  we  shall  see  later,  in 
the  early  stages  a  certain  amount  of  deliberate  and  con- 
scious memorizing  must  be  done ;  we  shall  insist  on  the 
daily  repetition  of  a  certain  number  of  useful  compounds, 
but  sooner  or  later  we  shall  come  to  a  stage  in  which 
memory-work  must  be  carried  out  on  a  far  larger  scale 
and  in  a  far  more  spontaneous  manner.  We  must  train 
ourselves  to  become  spontaneous  memorizers,  and  this 
can  only  be  done  in  one  way  :  we  must  acquire  the 
capacity  for  retaining  a  chance  phrase  or  compound 
which  has  fallen  upon  our  ears  in  the  course  of  a  con- 
versation or  speech.  It  is  in  this  way  that  we  have 
acquired  those  thousands  of  phrases  and  combinations 
which  make  up  the  bulk  of  our  daily  speech  in  our  own 
language.  We  have  acquired  the  capacity  of  noting  and 
retaining  any  new  combinations  of  English  words  which 
we  may  chance  to  hear  ;  we  do  this  unconsciously,  and 
are  not  aware  of  doing  so  ;  we  rarely  or  never  invent 
new  types  of  compounds,  but  simply  reproduce  at 
appropriate  moments  those  types  of  compounds  which 

92 


INITIAL  PREPARATION 

we  have  happened  to  hear  used  by  those  speaking  in 
our  presence.  This  is  one  of  the  habits  we  acquired  in 
our  infancy ;  this  is  one  of  the  habits  we  must  revive  now 
and  use  for  the  foreign  language  we  are  studying.  So 
long  as  we  have  not  acquired  this  habit  our  progress  will 
be  slow — too  slow  for  the  purpose  we  have  in  view. 

At  a  later  stage  of  our  study,  it  is  true,  w^e  may  make 
such  acquisitions  by  reading  instead  of  listening,  but  this 
will  only  be  after  we  have  become  proficient  in  repro- 
ducing what  we  hear.  We  may  be  inclined  to  think  that 
we  assimilate  new  linguistic  material  by  the  eye  alone, 
but  this  is  not  the  case  ;  the  eye  alone  cannot  assimilate. 
It  may  be  taken  as  proved  to-day  that  all  normal  people 
'  inner- articulate  '  all  that  they  read,  that  we  are  indeed 
incapable  of  understanding  what  we  read  unless  a  process 
of '  inner-articulating  '  is  going  on  at  the  same  time.  We 
need  not  stop  at  present  to  inquire  exactly  what  is  the 
psychological  definition  and  explanation  of  this  inner- 
articulating  ;  we  may  content  ourselves  for  the  moment 
by  defining  this  process  as  a  sort  of  '  mental  repetition.'  ^ 
It  is  well  known  that  deaf-mute  children  who  have  been 
taught  to  read  and  to  write  never  acquire  the  power  of 
writing  their  '  native  language  '  as  normally  used  ;  they 
produce  an  artificial  variety  which  reads  as  if  it  were 
written  by  a  foreigner.  Nor  is  this  to  be  wandered  at ;  it 
is  perfectly  in  accordance  with  what  might  be  expected  ; 
deaf-mutes  cannot  articulate,  either  aloud  or  mentally  ; 
they  are  therefore  compelled  to  learn  by  studial  methods, 
and  they  acquire  language  as  slowly  and  as  painfully  as 
anyone  acquires  a  foreign  language  by  mere  studial 
methods. 

1  Victor  Egger,  La  Parole  interieure  :  "  Souvent  ce  que  nous 
appelons  entendre  comprend  un  commencement  d'articulation 
silencieuse,  des  mouvements  faibles,  6bauch^s,  dans  I'appareil 
vocal  "  (Ribot). 

98 


THE  PRINCIPLES   OF  LANGUAGE-STUDY 

To  learn  to  repeat  mentally  exactly  what  we  hear, 
neither  more  nor  less,  without  the  intervention  of  any 
other  elements  than  those  of  hearing  and  articulating,  is, 
then,  one  of  the  things  we  must  do  if  we  wish  to  avail  our- 
selves of  the  help  which  nature  is  ready  to  afford  us. 

Another  of  the  spontaneous  capacities  with  which  we 
are  endowed  is  that  of  understanding  the  gist  of  what  we 
hear  without  any  intervention  of  analysis  or  synthesis. 
Some  people  seem  never  to  have  lost  this  power.  It 
suffices  that  they  should  have  a  certain  number  of 
opportunities  of  listening  to  the  language  being  used  for 
them  to  be  able  to  gather  the  general  sense  of  what  they 
hear.  Others  do  not  appear  to  possess  this  '  gift ' ;  they 
cannot  understand  anything  they  have  not  analysed  and 
reduced  to  its  component  units.  In  reality,  if  they  would 
refrain  from  so  analysing  what  they  hear  (or  even  read) 
they  would  soon  find  themselves  able  to  do  as  well  in  this 
respect  as  the  '  gifted.'  We  therefore  suggest  that  a 
programme  of  this  sort  should  include  a  certain  number 
of  exercises  designed  expressly  to  develop  this  power  of 
direct  understanding. 

What  sort  of  exercises  should  these  be  ?  They  are 
many  and  varied.  The  essential  feature  should  be  the 
rigid  exclusion  of  all  opportunities  for  reasoning,  calcula- 
tion, analysis,  or  synthesis.  The  pupil  must  not  be 
allowed  to  focus  his  consciousness  on  the  structure  of  the 
language ;  he  must  keep  his  attention  on  the  subject- 
matter.  The  natural  law  in  this  respect  would  seem  to  be 
that  we  shall  come  to  understand  what  we  hear  provided 
that  we  fix  our  minds  not  on  the  actual  words  used  but  on 
the  circumstances  which  result  in  the  words  in  question. 
Interest  must  be  present.  If  you  are  not  interested 
directly  or  indirectly  in  what  you  hear,  you  may  listen 
and  listen  for  months  or  even  years  without  under- 

94 


INITIAL   PREPARATION 

standing  what  you  hear.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  things 
are  said  in  your  presence  concerning  matters  which  affect 
even  distantly  your  welfare  or  which  are  connected  with 
your  interests  or  surroundings,  you  will  have  a  tendency 
to  grasp  the  meaning  of  what  is  said.  We  must  en- 
deavour to  devise  a  series  of  exercises  which  fulfil  these 
conditions  ;  we  must  design  forms  of  work  in  which  the 
student's  attention  shall  be  directed  towards  the  subject- 
matter  and  away  from  the  form  in  which  it  is  expressed. 
Gradation,  however,  must  be  observed  if  we  wish  to 
obtain  fairly  rapid  results,  we  must  first  work  with  a  com- 
paratively limited  vocabulary,  we  must  use  an  abundance 
of  gesture,  we  must  avail  ourselves  of  everything  likely  to 
further  our  aim.  In  so  doing,  however,  we  must  avoid 
the  other  extreme  ;  if  we  are  too  careful  in  our  choice  of 
words,  if  we  speak  too  slowly  and  over-emphasize  our 
speech,  the  process  of  understanding  will  be  too  con- 
scious ;  we  shall  be  fostering  habits  of  conscious  study 
and  of  focused  attention,  things  which  are  very  good  in 
their  way,  but  which  are  not  calculated  to  further  the 
particular  end  we  have  at  present  in  view. 

The  most  natural  form  of  work,  indeed  the  first  form  of 
work  which  suggests  itself  to  us,  consists  in  talking  to  our 
pupils,  talking  to  them  naturally  and  fluently,  talking  to 
them  about  anything  which  may  conceivably  be  of  in- 
terest to  them.  We  may  show  them  the  different  parts 
of  the  room  in  which  the  lessons  are  given,  the  furniture, 
objects  on  the  table  or  in  our  pockets,  and  while  showing 
them  we  name  them  and  speak  about  them.  We  may 
perform  all  sorts  of  actions  and  say  what  we  are  doing  ; 
we  may  describe  the  position  of  the  various  objects,  their 
qualities  and  attributes  ;  we  may  show  pictures  and 
describe  them.  These  elementary  talks  will  gradually 
develop  ;  we  may  pass  by  easier  stages  from  the  concrete 

95 


THE  PRINCIPLES   OF  LANGUAGE-STUDY 

to  the  abstract ;  in  the  end  we  shall  be  relating  (and 
even  reading)  simple  stories,  and  our  listeners  will  come 
to  follow  our  thoughts  and  understand  what  we  are 
saying,  even  as  we  understood  the  simple  stories  for 
which  we  clamoured  in  our  nursery  days. 

Another  form  of  work,  called  '  imperative  drill,'  con- 
sists in  giving  orders  in  the  foreign  language  to  the  pupils 
to  perform  certain  actions  (stand  up,  sit  down,  take  your 
book,  open  it,  shut  it,  etc.).  In  the  initial  stage  such 
orders  will  be  accompanied  by  the  necessary  gestures  ; 
the  students  will  not  be  slow  to  grasp  what  is  required  of 
them,  and  in  a  very  short  time  they  will  respond  auto- 
matically to  the  stimulus  provided  by  the  foreign  impera- 
tive sentence. 

Another  form  of  exercise  designed  to  cultivate  the 
capacity  of  immediate  comprehension  is  that  in  which 
we  require  our  pupils  to  answer  yes  or  no  (oui  or  non,  ja 
or  nein,  etc.)  to  hundreds  of  questions  which  w^e  ask  them, 
(Is  this  your  book  ?  Is  the  sky  blue  ?  iVm  I  speaking  to 
you  ?     Are  we  in  France  ?  etc.,  etc.) 

Certain  other  simple  forms  of  systematic  questionnaire 
exercises  will  further  develop  the  natural  powers  of  com- 
prehension, of  associating  the  word  with  the  thought.  A 
type  of  exercise  called  '  action-drill  '  will  have  the  same 
effect  if  carried  out  as  a  means  to  the  particular  end  we 
have  in  view. 

These  then  are  the  chief  things  to  be  done  once  we  have 
decided  to  enlist  on  our  behalf  the  universal  and  natural 
powers  of  language-using,  and  these  are  some  of  the 
various  ways  in  which  we  may  achieve  our  aim.  All  of 
them  are  possible  and  all  of  them  can  be  carried  out  in 
actual  practice  by  any  teacher  who  has  a  sufficient  com- 
mand of  the  foreign  language  (and  if  he  has  not,  we  can 
hardly  call   him  a  competent  teacher).     Nothing  has 

9e 


INITIAL   PREPARATION 

been  suggested  here  which  has  not  already  been  success- 
fully carried  out  by  those  whose  business  it  is  to  ascertain 
experimentally  how  languages  are  actually  learned. 

The  initial  stages  of  the  language-course  will  be  very 
largely  characterized  by  these  forms  of  work,  in  order  that 
the  student  may  be  thoroughly  prepared  and  mentally 
equipped  for  the  later  stages. 


97 


CHAPTER  YIII 
HABIT-FORMING  AND   HABIT-ADAPTING 

LANGUAGE-LEARNING,  like  all  other  arts  as  con- 
trasted with  sciences,  is  a  habit-forming  process. 
/Proficiency  in  the  understanding  of  the  structure 
of  a  language  is  attained  by  treating  the  subject  as  a 
science,  by  studying  the  theory  ;  but  proficiency  in  the 
use  of  a  language  can  only  come  as  a  result  of  perfectly 
formed  habits.  No  foreign  word,  form,  or  combination 
of  these  is  '  known  '  or  '  mastered  '  until  we  can  use  it 
automatically,  until  we  can  attach  it  to  its  meaning 
wdthout  conscious  analysis,  until  we  can  produce  it 
without  hesitation  and  conscious  synthesis.  We  hear 
a  foreign  sentence  as  pronounced  at  a  normal  speed  by 
a  native  speaker.  If  we  understand  this  sentence  as 
soon  as  it  falls  from  his  lips,  if  we  understand  it  without 
being  conscious  of  its  form  or  without  even  realizing 
that  we  are  listening  to  a  foreign  language,  we  '  possess  ' 
that  sentence,  it  forms  part  of  the  material  v/hich  we  have 
gained  as  the  result  of  a  habit ;  our  understanding  of  it  is 
'  automatic.''  If,  on  the  other  hand,  w^e  ask  the  speaker  to 
repeat  it  or  to  say  it  more  slowly,  if  we  claim  a  moment 
of  reflection  in  order  to  realize  the  parts  of  which  it  is 
composed,  if  we  subject  it  to  a  rapid  analysis  or  to  a 
rapid  translation,  we  do  not  possess  the  sentence  ;  it  has 
not  become  automatic. 

We  wish  to  speak  ;  if  the  foreign  sentence  springs  to  our 

98 


HABIT-FORMING  AND  HABIT-ADAPTING 

lips  as  soon  as  we  have  formulated  the  thought,  if  we 
are  unconscious  of  the  words  or  the  form  of  the  v/ords 
contained  in  it,  if  we  are  unaware  of  the  manner  in  which 
we  have  pieced  it  together,  it  is  certain  that  we  have 
produced  it  automatically,  we  have  produced  it  as  the 
result  of  a  perfectly  formed  habit.  If,  on  the  other 
hand,  we  prepare  the  sentence  in  advance  ;  if,  as  we 
utter  it,  we  consciously  choose  the  words  or  the  form  of 
the  words  contained  in  it ;  if  we  build  it  up  by  conscious 
synthesis  or  by  a  rapid  translation  from  an  equivalent 
sentence  of  our  native  tongue,  we  do  not  produce  it 
automatically ;  we  have  not  formed  the  habit  of 
using  the  sentence  or  the  type  of  sentence  to  w^hich  it 
belongs  ;  we  are  producing  it  by  means  of  conscious 
calculation. 

Adult  students  in  general  dislike  forming  new  habits 
and  avoid  such  work  as  far  as  possible ;  they  seek  to 
replace  it  by  forms  of  study  requiring  discrimination 
and  other  processes  of  the  intellect.  One  reason  for 
this  is  that  habit-forming  often  entails  monotonous  work, 
whereas  the  other  types  of  work  are  more  or  less  interest- 
ing ;  another  reason  is  that  the  forming  of  a  habit 
seems  a  slow  process  ;  so  many  repetitions  are  required 
and  progress  is  not  at  once  apparent,  whereas  the  other 
form  of  work  has  all  the  appearance  of  rapidity.  We 
know%  however,  that  in  reality  w^hat  we  have  learnt  as 
the  result  of  a  habit  is  not  only  immediately  available 
at  all  times,  but  is  also  a  permanent  acquisition,  and 
that  what  we  have  learnt  by  the  aid  of  theory  alone  is 
neither  immediately  available  nor  permanent.  Let  us 
take  an  example  to  illustrate  our  point. 

We  wish  to  learn  when  and  how  to  use  each  of  the 
German  cases.  The  theory  of  the  declension  provides 
us  with  all  the  necessary  rules  and  exceptions.     One 

99 


THE  PRINCIPLES  OF  LANGUAGE-STUDY 

set  of  prepositions  requires  the  accusative,  another  the 
dative,  another  the  genitive,  another  accusative  or  dative 
according  to  certain  semantic  considerations.  This  rule 
can  be  mastered  without  any  great  difficulty  ;  within 
the  space  of  a  few  hours  the  necessary  formulae  may  be 
committed  to  memory,  and  the  student  imagines  that 
the  problem  is  solved  for  all  time.  "  Whenever  I  want 
to  know  what  case  to  use,"  he  thinks,  "  I  shall  only  have 
to  remember  to  which  category  the  preposition  belongs 
and  I  shall  know  what  case  is  required."  In  reality  his 
knowledge  of  the  theory,  i.e.  his  memory  of  the  categories, 
will  soon  become  blurred  and  will  tend  to  fade  away  ; 
and  even  if  he  does  succeed  in  retaining  this  fresh  in  his 
memory,  he  will  always  require  a  second  or  two  of 
conscious  reflection  before  he  is  able  to  hit  on  the  right 
case.  He  will  be  using  consciousness  where  unconscious- 
ness would  serve  him  better  ;  if  (as  is  probable)  he 
has  learnt  to  determine  gender  by  a  similar  process,  his 
conscious  attention  will  have  to  be  devoted  to  this  as 
well,  he  will  be  focusing  his  attention  on  the  language- 
material,  which  will  prevent  him  from  focusing  it  on 
the  things  he  wishes  to  say.  Deciding  to  use  these 
'  short  cuts  '  he  will  therefore  assume  for  his  whole  life- 
time the  burden  of  continual  conscious  effort. 

Now,  instead  of  learning  and  applying  theory  he 
might  memorize  a  hundred  or  so  real  living  sentences, 
each  exemplifying  one  of  the  results  of  the  theory.  By 
doing  so  he  would  acquire  a  hundred  or  so  new  habits 
or  automatic  actions.  He  recoils  before  the  task  ;  the 
perfect  memorizing  of  a  simple  sentence  is  so  distasteful 
to  him  ;  it  seems  to  take  so  long  ;  he  fails  to  realize 
the  permanent  advantages  which  he  might  obtain  by 
doing  it ;  he  chooses  what  seems  the  easier  path,  the 
short  cut. 

100 


HABIT-FORMING  AND  HABIT-A0k^PTX?^ 

It  is  here  that  we  see  the  value  of  spontaneous  assimi- 
lation. If  the  student  has  trained  his  capacities  of  re- 
taining unconsciously  what  he  may  happen  to  hear  (or 
read),  he  will  memorize  without  effort,  and  without  the 
expenditure  of  any  appreciable  amount  of  nervous 
energy. 

The  same  considerations  apply  to  the  learning  of  the 
French  conjugation,  English  pronunciation,  Hungarian 
vocalic  harmony,  Welsh  mutation,  or  to  the  overcoming 
of  the  other  obstacles  in  the  path  of  progress  towards 
perfect  attainment. 

The  fear  of  monotonous  and  tedious  memorizing  work, 
and  the  realization  of  the  length  of  time  necessary  for 
each  act  of  memorizing,  induce  the  student  to  invent 
pretexts  for  avoiding  such  work.  He  declares  that 
'  parrot-work  '  is  not  education,  that  modern  educa- 
tionaHsts  condemn  '  learning  by  rote,'  that  the  age  of 
blind  repetition  is  over  and  that  the  age  of  intelligent 
understanding  has  taken  its  place.  He  will  talk  of  the 
method  of  discovery,  the  factor  of  interest,  and  will 
even  quote  to  us  '  the  laws  of  nature  '  in  defence  of  his 
thesis.  But  we  know  that  in  reality  these  are  but  so 
many  excuses  for  his  disinclination  to  form  those  habits 
which  can  secure  him  the  automatism  which  alone  will 
result  in  sound  and  permanent  progress. 

This  fear  of  tediousness  is  not  really  justified  at  ail, 
for  mechanical  work  is  not  necessarily  monotonous. 
Automatism,  it  is  true,  is  acquired  by  repetition,  but 
this  repetition  need  not  be  of  the  parrot-like  type. 
Repetition,  in  the  sense  ascribed  to  it  by  the  psychologist, 
simply  means  having  many  separate  occasions  to  hear, 
to  see,  to  utter,  or  to  write  a  given  word  or  sentence. 
The  object  of  most  of  the  language-teaching  exercises, 
drills,  and  devices  invented  or  developed  in  recent  years 

101 


TEE  PRINCIPLES  OF  LANGUAGE -STUDY 

is  precisely  to  ensure  proper  repetition  in  attractive  and 
interesting  ways. 

Nearly  all  the  time  spent  by  the  teacher  in  explaining 
why  such  and  such  a  form  is  used  and  why  a  certain 
sentence  is  constructed  in  a  certain  way  is  time  lost,  for 
such  explanations  merely  appease  curiosity  ;  they  do 
not  help  us  to  form  new  habits,  they  do  not  develop  auto- 
matism. Those  who  have  learnt  to  use  the  foreign 
language  and  who  do  use  it  successfully  have  long  since 
forgotten  the  why  and  the  wherefore  ;  they  can  no 
longer  quote  to  you  the  theory  which  was  supposed  to 
have  procured  them  their  command  of  the  language. 

When  teaching  the  French  word  chauvesouris  it  is 
not  necessary  to  point  out  that  this  is  literally  equivalent 
to  '  bald-mouse ' ;  and  if  we  tell  our  student  that  ^a  se 
comprend  really  means  '  that  understands  itself,'  we  are 
telling  him  something  which  is  not  true,  and  something 
that  will  cause  him  needless  perplexity.  Hauptstadt  is 
the  German  equivalent  of  '  capital '  (in  the  geographical 
sense),  and  we  need  not  pander  to  morbid  etymological 
habits  by  making  an  allusion  to  '  head-town.'  Nothing 
is  gained,  but  much  is  lost,  if  we  tell  the  student  that  the 
French  say  '  I  am  become  '  instead  of  '  I  have  become.' 

It  may  be  objected  that  habit-forming  is  aided  by 
these  explanations,  that  the  knowledge  of  the  why  and 
the  wherefore  is  a  useful  aid  to  the  process  of  memoriz- 
ing. There  is  something  to  be  said  for  this  statement ; 
we  are  ready  to  admit  that  in  some  instances  it  is  good 
to  point  out  the  nature  of  the  laws  that  stand  behind 
the  sentences  which  exemplify  them  ;  we  shall  even 
show  later  in  what  cases  and  for  v/hat  reasons  we  counsel 
the  giving  of  explanations.  But  we  are  entirely  at 
issue  with  those  who  maintain  that  explanations  are  an 
indispensable  concomitant  of  memorizing,  and  we  give  a 
102 


HABIT-FORMING  AND  HABIT-ADAPTING 

flat  contradiction  to  those  who  maintain  that  "  they 
cannot  memorize  what  they  don't  understand."  The 
most  successful  hnguists  have  attained  their  proficiency 
by  memorizing  sentences  they  could  not  analyse.  The 
temptation  to  replace  habit-forming  by  analysis  and 
synthesis  is  so  strong  that  the  teacher  must  continually 
react  against  it. 

As  we  have  already  seen,  instead  of  acquiring  the 
habit  of  using  the  French  sound  e  the  English  student 
persists  in  replacing  it  by  some  form  of  the  English  ay  ; 
conversely,  the  French  student  of  English  tends  to  re- 
place the  English  ay  by  the  French  e.  Most  of  these 
acts  of  substitution  are  illegitimate  ;  French  eu  is  a 
very  poor  substitute  for  English  u  in  hut^  the  English 
word  air  is  a  mere  caricature  of  the  French  word  air ; 
of  the  six  sounds  contained  in  the  word  thoroughly 
[^Ar9li],  only  two,  [9]  and  [1],  are  in  any  way  equivalent 
to  French  sounds.  About  half  of  the  forty-six  sounds 
(or  rather  '  phones  ')  contained  in  the  English  phonetic 
system  have  no  equivalent  in  French,  and  about  the 
same  proportion  of  the  thirty-seven  French  sounds  are 
absent  from  English.  Yet  most  French  users  of  English 
and  most  English  users  of  French  endeavour  respectively 
to  speak  the  foreign  language  with  no  other  sounds  than 
their  native  sounds.  The  French  system  of  stress  and 
intonation  is  entirely  different  from  the  English  system, 
but  most  Enghsh  students  w^ill  use  their  native  system 
when  speaking  French.  The  average  English  student 
replaces  French  habits  of  sentence-building  by  his  previ- 
ously acquired  English  habits,  and  also  attributes  to 
French  words  or  word-compounds  the  meanings  (or 
connotations)  possessed  by  what  he  imagines  to  be  their 
English  equivalents. 

In  many  cases  he  is  undoubtedly  justified  ;   his  efforts 

103 


THE  PRINCIPLES   OF  LANGUAGE-STUDY 

are  not  all  misplaced  ;  some  foreign  sounds  are  actually 
identical  with  some  native  sounds,   some  foreign  con- 
structions are  actually  parallel  with  some  native  con- 
structions, and  some  foreign  words  and  expressions  do 
possess  an  exact  counterpart  in  the  native  language. 
But  the  trouble  is  that  the  student  fails  to  realize  in 
what  cases  these  identities  exist ;   untrained  in  observa- 
tion   and    discrimination,   he   considers   as   equivalents 
things  which  are  not,  and  fails  to  identify  as  equivalents 
things  which  are.     French  a  in  patte  is  frequently  not 
far  removed  from  a  perfectly  English  variety  of  u  in 
cut,  but  the  average  Frenchman  pronounces  cut  with 
the  French  vowel  eu  in  veuve,  and  the  average  English- 
man pronounces  patte  either  with  the  vowel  of  pat  or 
of  part.     The   last   syllable   of  pleasure   is   practically 
identical   with  the  French   word  je,   but   the   average 
Frenchman  does  not  know  this,  and  substitutes  some 
sort  of  French  ure  or  cure.     The  French  words  souhaite, 
semelle,  laine,  dialecte  are  very  similar  to  the  (real  or 
imaginary)  English  words  sweat,  smell,  len,  d^yullect,  but 
the  average  English  student  does  not  know  this,  and 
uses  pronunciations  such  as  soohate,  semell,  lane,dee-ah-lect 
instead. 

In  these  and  all  parallel  cases  the  student  is  utilizing 
certain  of  his  previously  acquired  habits,  but  unfortun- 
ately he  has  selected  the  wrong  ones  instead  of  the  right 
ones  ;  it  is  for  the  skilful  language-teacher  to  ascertain 
which  of  the  student's  known  habits  can  be  most  nearly 
adapted  to  what  is  required. 

The  same  thing  holds  good  in  the  case  of  construc- 
tion, choice  of  words,  etc.  The  English  student  con- 
structs the  sentence  Je  marcherai  h  la  gare  on  the  wrong 
model ;  if  he  must  use  an  English  habit  at  all,  he  should 
in  this  case  proceed  from  /  shall  go  on  foot  to  the  station 

104 


HABIT-FORMING  AND  HABIT-ADAPTING 

and  not  from  /  shall  walk  to  the  station.  Some  may 
inquire  at  this  point,  "  Why  drag  in  English  at  all  ? 
Why  not  think  in  the  foreign  language  without  refer- 
ence to  the  mother-tongue  ?  "  We  would  reply  that 
this  is  hardly  relevant  to  the  matter  under  immediate 
consideration  ;  we  are  simply  showing  that  the  average 
student,  if  left  to  himself,  will  tend  not  only  to  utilize 
his  native  linguistic  habits,  but  to  select  very  unsuit- 
able ones.  We  would,  however,  add  that  cases  do 
undoubtedly  exist  in  which  the  student  would  be  well 
advised  to  enlist  some  of  his  previously  acquired  habits  ; 
a  judiciously  selected  native  form  will  produce  better 
results  than  a  badly  constructed  foreign  form.^ 

^  A  typical  example  has  jiist  been  noticed  by  the  writer :  a 
Dutch  student's  proniinciation  of  '  know  it '  was  almost  unin- 
telligible, but  when  advised  to  replace  this  rendering  by  the  Dutch 
word  nooit  he  produced  a  very  close  approximation  to  the  English 
pronunciation. 


105 


CHAPTER  IX 
ACCURACY 

LET  us  be  quite  sure  we  understand  what  we  mean 
by  the  term  '  accuracy.'  There  is,  of  course,  no 
^such  thing  as  intrinsic  or  unconditioned  accuracy  ; 
the  term  is  a  relative  and  not  an  absolute  one ; 
this  word,  and  its  synonyms  '  correctness,'  '  rightness,' 
and  the  adjectives  '  accurate,'  '  correct,'  '  right,' 
'  good,'  '  proper,'  etc.,  all  imply  conformity  with  a  given 
standard  or  model.  If  the  dialect  we  are  learning  is  an 
unclassical  one,  differing  appreciably  from  the  literary 
form,  then  accuracy  will  consist,  among  other  things, 
in  not  using  the  literary  or  traditionally  correct 
forms.  Therefore,  if  we  are  learning  colloquial  French 
we  shall  be  guilty  of  inaccuracies  every  time  we  use 
cela  instead  of  ga  and  every  time  we  use  the  passe  dSfini 
(or  whatever  the  present  name  of  this  tense  may  be)  or 
the  imparfait  du  subjonctif.  Whether  the  French  Aca- 
demician approves  of  the  colloquial  forms  does  not 
concern  us  from  the  moment  that  we  have  set  out  to 
learn  the  colloquial  forms.  Du  hon  pain,  c^est  pas  ga, 
i'  m'a  dit  que^qu'chose  may  or  may  not  be  typical  of 
educated  speech,  but  if,  for  reasons  of  our  own,  we  have 
decided  to  acquire  the  type  of  speech  exemplified,  then 
de  hon  pain,  ce  n^est  pas  cela,  il  rn'a  dit  quelque  chose 
will  be  inaccurate  as  not  being  in  conformity  with  the 
standard  we  have  chosen. 

106 


-  \ 

ACCURACY 

Who  do  you  give  it  to  ?  What  have  you  got  f  It's  me, 
Under  the  circumstances,  etc.,  etc.,  may  or  may  not 
represent  an  atrocious  English  dialect ;  but  we  may 
decide  to  teach  this  dialect  to  our  foreign  students, 
if  only  because  this  is  the  dialect  most  often  used 
by  the  average  educated  speaker.  Once  we  have  made 
this  decision  we  shall  consider  as  inaccuracies  such 
forms  as  To  whom  did  you  give  it  ?  What  have  you  ? 
It  is  I,  In  the  circumstances. 

When,  therefore,  we  use  the  terms  inaccuracy,  mistake, 
fault,  wrong  form,  error,  etc.,  we  shall  always  mean 
something  not  in  conformity  with  the  type  of  speech  chosen 
as  a  convenient  standard. 

One  of  the  duties  of  the  language-teacher  and  method- 
writer  is  to  react  against  the  tendency  of  the  student 
towards  inaccuracy.  We  shall  generally  find  two  types 
of  inaccuracy  :  (a)  that  which  consists  in  using  the  wrong 
dialect  (literary  instead  of  colloquial,  or  vice  versa),  and 
}(6)  that  which  consists  in  using  pidgin.  Pidgin  or 
j pidgin-speech  may  be  defined  as  that  variety  of  a  lan- 
guage which  is  used  exchisively  by  foreigners.^  Some 
kinds  of  pidgin  {e.g.  pidgin-English  of  the  China  ports, 
the  Chinook  jargon  of  British  Columbia)  have  become 
so  standardized  that  they  may  almost  be  considered  as 
normal  languages  ;  many  people  deliberately  set  out  to 
learn  such  pidgin-languages,  and  we  may  conceive  of 
the  possibility  of  these  possessing  sub-pidgin  forms. 

In  connexion  with  the  first  type  of  inaccuracy  (wrong 
dialect),  we  should  here  note  that  the  uneducated  native 
tends  to  make  too  extensive  a  use  of  the  popular  dialect, 
whereas  the  tendency  of  the  student  to  whom  the 
language  is  foreign  is  the  contrary  one  :  he  makes  too 
extensive  a  use  of  the  classical  or  traditionally  correct 

^  Or,  in  some  cases,  by  natives  when  gpeaking  to  foreigners. 

107 


THE  PRINCIPLES   OF  LANGUAGE -STUDY 

form.  The  uneducated  native  will  tend  to  use  the  collo- 
quial form  when  writing  ;  the  foreigner  will  tend  to 
use  the  literary  when  speaking.  In  both  cases  it  is 
part  of  the  functions  of  the  teacher  to  react  against 
these  tendencies  :  to  the  schoolchild  he  will  say,  "  Don't 
use  a  preposition  to  finish  a  sentence  with  !  "  ;  to  the 
foreign  speaker  he  will  give  the  contrary  advice. 

Having  defined  the  terms  accuracy  and  inaccuracy^  let 
us  now  see  to  how  many  branches  of  language-study 
these  terms  (and  their  synonyms)  may  be  applied. 

(a)  There  may  be  accuracy  or  inaccuracy  in  sounds. 
The  student  must  be  taught,  by  means  of  appropriate 
drills  and  exercises,  to  make  and  to  use  the  sounds  of 
the  language  he  is  studying  ;  if  he  uses  an  English 
sound  in  place  of  a  French  one,  or  if  he  uses  a  right  French 
sound  in  the  wrong  place,  he  will  be  doing  inaccurate 
work.  Ear-training  and  articulation  exercises  (as  de- 
scribed in  Chapter  VII)  will  tend  to  make  him  accurate 
in  this  respect. 

{h)  There  may  be  accuracy  or  inaccuracy  in  the  use 
of  stress  and  intonation.  To  use  one  language  with  the 
stress  and  intonation  system  of  another  results  in  a 
form  of  pidgin.  The  student  must  be  taught,  by  means 
of  appropriate  drills  and  exercises,  to  observe  and  to 
imitate  the  system  used  by  the  natives. 

(c)  There  may  be  accuracy  or  inaccuracy  in  fluency. 
Most  languages  are  spoken  at  the  rate  of  five  syllables 
per  second.  Nothing  is  to  be  gained  by  speaking  at  a 
slower  rate  ;  indeed,  it  will  often  be  found  that  rapid 
speech  is  easier  of  acquisition  than  slow  speech.  Correct 
fluency  includes  correct  assimilation  or  absence  of 
assimilation,  and  the  requisite  degree  of  smoothness  or 
grace  of  utterance  ;  we  may  often  note  the  harsh  and 
halting  effect  of  the  speech  of  foreigners   who  when 

108 


ACCURACY 

speaking  their  native  tongue  are  masters  of  the  art  of 
elocution.  By  means  of  appropriate  exercises,  the 
student  can  be  made  to  observe  accuracy  in  fluency. 

(d)  When  the  student  uses  the  traditional  spelling  of 
the  language  he  should  be  encouraged  to  avoid  ortho- 
graphic inaccuracy.  Generally,  however,  few  mistakes 
of  this  sort  are  made,  and  these  tend  to  be  eliminated  more 
or  less  spontaneously.  If  this  is  not  the  case,  appropriate 
exercises  maybe  devisedin  orderto  ensure  accuracyin  this 
respect.  Let  us  note  here,  with  all  the  emphasis  which 
is  due  to  such  an  important  point,  ^ that  the  exclusive 
use  of  a  phonetic  script  in  the  early  stages  generally 
leads  to  a  greater  accuracy  in  the  traditional  spelling 
which  is  learnt  subsequently.  We  make  no  attempt 
here  to  furnish  an  explanation  of  why  and  how  this  is 
so,  but  leave  it  to  psychologists  to  investigate  the  subject 
and  to  ascertain  the  causes  of  Vv^hat  may  seem  paradoxical 
and  even  incredible  to  those  who  have  not  had  sufficient 
teaching  experience. 

(e)  There  may  be  accuracy  or  inaccuracy  in  combining 
words  ;  the  laws  of  sentence-building  are  not  the  same  for 
all  languages,  and  the  student  must  be  trained  to  observe 
the  right  laws  ;  he  must  be  taught  to  be  accurate  in  con- 
cord, in  compounding,  and  in  word-order.  Some  of  the 
most  interesting  methods  and  devices  are  designed  speci- 
fically to  react  against  inaccurate  tendencies  in  this  re- 
spect. It  is  as  easy  and  as  natural  to  say  la  table  (and  not 
le  table)  as  it  is  to  say  latitude  (and  not  latitude) ;  it  is  as 
easy  to  learn  je  ne  le  lui  ai  pas  donne  as  any  of  the  in- 
accurate examples  of  word-order  by  which  the  average 
English  student  tends  to  replace  it. 

(/)  There  may  be  accuracy  or  inaccuracy  in  the  use  of 
inflexions.  It  is  as  important  to  learn  the  right  inflected 
forms  of  a  word  as  to  learn  the  uninflected  word.     If  ou  -^ 

109 


THE  PRINCIPLES  OF  LANGUAGE-STUDY 

methods  are  right,  it  is  as  easy  to  learn  the  word  enverrai 
as  it  is  to  learn  the  word  envoy er,  and  far  easier  to  learn 
enverrai  than  envoyerai.  The  habit  of  using  the  right 
inflexions  is  one  that  must  be  acquired  at  as  early  a  stage 
as  possible  and  as  unconsciously  as  possible.  Many 
methods  and  devices  exist  which  have  been  designed  to 
combat  inaccuracy  in  this  respect. 

{g)  There  may  be  accuracy  or  inaccuracy  in  meanings. 
The  meaning  of  a  word  may  vary  considerably  according 
to  its  context.  Ojpen  in  the  sense  of  open  the  door  has 
not  the  same  meaning  as  open  in  the  sense  of  open  the 
box.  Most  English  words  have  two  or  more  meanings  ; 
the  foreign  words  which  are  assumed  to  be  their 
equivalents  may  also  have  two  or  more  meanings,  but 
the  foreign  word  does  not  necessarily  have  all  the  mean- 
ings of  the  English  word,  and  vice  versa.  The  branch 
of  linguistics  which  deals  with  meanings,  synonyms, 
translations,  definitions,  etc.,  is  called  '  semantics ' ; 
special  forms  of  work  have  been  devised  to  ensure 
semantic  accuracy  on  the  part  of  the  student. 

The  principle  of  accuracy  may  be  expressed  as  follows  : 
Do  not  allow  the  student  to  have  opportunities  for  inaccurate 
zvork  until  he  has  arrived  at  the  stage  at  which  accurate  work 
is  to  be  reasonably  expected. 

If  we  force  him  to  speak  French  before  he  has  been 
sufficiently  drilled  in  French  sounds,  we  are  forcing  him 
to  pronounce  inaccuratety.  If  we  tell  him  to  do  French 
composition  before  he  has  acquired  the  necessary  habits 
of  inflexion,  compounding,  and  sentence-building,  we  are 
inviting  him  to  do  inaccurate  work.  If  we  compel  him  to 
talk  to  us  in  French  before  he  has  become  proficient  in 
conversion  and  similar  drills,  we  are  virtually  compelling 
him  to  speak  pidgin-French  and,  incidentally,  to  form 
the  habit  of  doing  so.     In  opposition  to  the  principle  of 

110 


ACCURACY 

accuracy,  we  are  frequently  told  that  "It  is  only  by 
making  mistakes  that  we  learn  not  to  make  them,"  and 
that  "  Only  by  going  into  the  water  can  we  learn  to 
swim."  These  are  cheap  proverbs,  and  we  may  as  easily 
coin  others  such  as  :  "  It  is  by  making  mistakes  that  we 
form  the  habit  of  making  them  "  ;  or,  "  He  who  has  not 
learnt  to  swim  will  drown  when  thrown  into  deep  water." 

The  method  of  trial  and  error,  to  which  we  have  already 
alluded,  is  in  direct  opposition  to  the  principles  of 
accuracy ;  it  is  the  method  of  sink-or-s\\dm,  of  die-or- 
survive,  of  flounder-and-grope-until-you-hit-on-the-right- 
way.  To  replace  this  method  by  something  less  cruel 
is  the  function  of  such  things  as  guides,  teachers,  and 
pedagogic  devices.  For  let  us  remark  that  the  environ- 
ment of  the  young  child  who  acquires  language  spon- 
taneously, as  explained  in  Chapter  I,  is  such  that  error  has 
little  or  no  chance  of  surviving;  the  persons  with  whom  he 
is  in  contact  are  providing  him  continually  with  accurate 
models  of  whatever  the  dialect  may  happen  to  be  ;  he  is 
given  no  chance  of  imitating  wrong  models,  and  he  is  not 
intelligent  enough  to  create  them  himself  in  any  appreci- 
able degree.  Furthermore,  the  young  child  as  a  matter  of 
fact  does  not  begin  to  use  language  until  he  is  fairly  pro- 
ficient in  the  important  speech-habits  ;  he  rarely  or  never 
uses  a  form  of  speech  until  he  has  memorized  it  by  hearing 
it  used  by  others. 

One  of  the  most  important  advances  in  the  art  of 
language-teaching  will  have  been  made  when  the  principle 
of  accuracy  is  understood,  accepted,  and  adopted  by  all 
who  are  engaged  in  this  work  either  as  teachers  or  as 
trainers  of  teachers. 

We  have  seen,  then,  that  there  are  seven  branches  of 
language-study  in  which  accuracy  (or  inaccuracy)  may  be 
developed.     In  connexion  with  each  of  these  there  exist 

111 


THE  PRINCIPLES  OF  LANGUAGE-STUDY 

methods,  exercises,  and  devices  designed  to  inculcate 
right  habits  and  to  prevent  the  formation  of  wrong  ones. 
There  exist  also  sciences  upon  which  most  of  these  are 
based.  The  methods  dealing  with  sounds,  stress,  in- 
tonation, and  fluenc}^  are  based  on  the  data  furnished  by 
phonetics,  and  without  a  knowledge  of  this  science  the 
teacher  is  unlikely  to  secure  accuracy  in  these  branches. 
The  (so  far  empirical)  science  of  grammar  is  the  basis  of 
those  methods  and  exercises  calculated  to  ensure  accur- 
acy in  inflexions  and  sentence-building.  Orthography 
(possibly  a  science,  though  this  is  doubtful)  is  the  basis  of 
spelling  work,  and  the  new  (and  so  far  empirical)  science 
of  semantics  will  furnish  the  necessary  data  for  all 
methods,  exercises,  and  devices  concerned  with  meanings. 
In  addition  to  these  specific  sciences,  methods,  exer- 
cises, and  devices,  there  are  general  forms  of  method  of 
the  strategical  order,  the  effect  of  which  is  to  ensure 
general  accuracy.  As  these  are  practically  identical  with 
gradation,  we  reserve  their  consideration  for  the  next 
chapter. 


112 


CHAPTER   X 

GRADATION 

^^^RADATION  means  passing  from  the  known  to  the 
m  —.  unknown  by  easy  stages,  each  of  which  serves  as  a 
\^^  preparation  for  the  next.  If  a  student  who  is 
willing  to  learn  and  is  capable  of  learning  finds  his  lessons 
too  difficult,  if  he  fails  to  understand  or  to  apply  correctly 
the  explanations  we  give  him,  if  his  rate  of  progress  is  too 
slow,  if  he  forgets  frequently  what  he  has  already  learnt, 
and  if  his  oral  or  written  work  is  characterized  by  an 
excessive  degree  of  inaccuracy,  it  is  perfectly  certain 
that  his  course  and  his  lessons  are  badly  graded. 

The  student's  progress  may  in  the  initial  stage  be  slow  ; 
after  ten  or  twenty  lessons  he  may  not  seem  to  have 
advanced  very  far ;  but  if  he  has  been  laying  a  good  foun- 
dation he  has  been  doing  good  work,  for  it  will  mean  that 
the  next  stage  of  his  work  will  be  accomplished  more 
easily  and  more  rapidly.  During  the  first  lessons  he  is 
not  so  much  learning  the  language  as  learning  how  to 
learn  it.  During  the  second  period  his  progress  will  be 
more  rapid  and  he  will  assimilate  more  of  the  actual 
language-material,  and  he  will  then  be  learning  in  such 
a  way  that  the  third  stage  will  be  still  more  rapid,  and  so 
on  through  the  subsequent  stages  ;  his  rate  of  progress 
will  increase  in  proportion  as  he  advances. 

In  the  ideal  course,  this  principle  will  be  observed  in 
the  fullest  possible  measure  ;    the  course  itself  will  be 

8  113 


THE  PRINCIPLES   OF  LANGUAGE-STUDY 

divided  into  appropriate  stages,  each  of  which  will  be 
marked  by  an  increased  capacity  on  the  part  of  the 
student  for  assimilating  and  using  language-material. 

The  vocabulary  in  a  well-graded  language-course  will 
be  arranged  in  such  a  manner  that  the  more  useful  words 
will  be  learnt  before  the  less  useful.  (Let  us  remember 
that  there  are  two  sorts  of  '  useful  words  ' :  those  which 
are  useful  in  themselves  on  account  of  their  intrinsic 
meaning,  and  words  which  are  useful  as  sentence  formers.) 
The  rate  of  progress  on  the  part  of  the  student  will  de- 
pend very  largely  on  the  manner  in  which  the  vocabulary 
is  graded.  Twenty-five  well-chosen  words  will  form 
more  useful  sentences  than  many  people  believe  ;  with 
five  hundred  well-chosen  words  an  incredibly  large  num- 
ber of  valuable  sentences  can  be  formed.  For  detailed 
information  on  this  point  we  would  refer  the  reader  to  the 
statistics  which  have  been  compiled  by  those  who'  have 
made  a  special  study  of  this  particular  subject.  In  the 
ideally  graded  course  the  student  first  assimilates  a 
relatively  small  but  exceedingly  important  vocabulary  ; 
he  learns  to  use  it,  he  learns  the  more  important  peculiar- 
ities of  each  word,  he  learns  how  to  combine  these  words 
in  sentences,  he  learns  the  exact  range  of  meanings 
covered  by  each  word  either  singly  or  in  combination 
with  its  fellows.  This  small  vocabulary  then  constitutes 
a  sound  nucleus,  and  this  nucleus  is  of  twofold  utility  ;  it 
not  only  provides  the  student  with  useful  words,  with 
language-material  which  he  can  actually  use,  but  it 
serves  at  the  same  time  as  a  sort  of  centre  of  attraction 
for  new  language-material.  The  most  apt  illustration 
of  this  form  of  gradation  is  the  snowball,  the  huge  mass 
of  snow  which  accumulates  rapidly  and  easily  once  we 
have  provided  the  nucleus  represented  by  the  first  com- 
pact and  wxll-rounded  handful. 
114 


GRADATION 

The  grammatical  material  must  also  be  graded.  Cer- 
tain moods  and  tenses  are  more  useful  than  others ;  let  us 
therefore  concentrate  on  the  useful  ones  first.  In  a  lan- 
guage possessing  a  number  of  cases,  we  will  not  learn  off 
the  whole  set  of  prepositions,  their  uses  and  requirements, 
but  we  will  select  them  in  accordance  with  their  degree  of 
importance.  As  for  lists  of  rules  and  exceptions,  if  we 
learn  them  at  all  we  will  learn  them  in  strict  order  of 
necessity.  In  most  languages  we  shall  probably  find 
certain  fundamental  laws  of  grammar  and  syntax  upon 
which  the  whole  structure  of  the  language  depends  ;  if 
our  course  is  to  comprise  the  conscious  study  of  the 
mechanism  of  a  given  language,  then,  in  accordance  with 
the  principle  of  gradation,  let  us  first  learn  these  essen- 
tials and  leave  the  details  to  a  later  stage. 

Gradation  can  and  must  also  be  observed  in  the  study 
of  the  semantic  aspect  of  a  language.  If  a  given  word  has 
several  meanings,  let  us  first  associate  the  word  with  its 
more  usual  or  useful  meanings.  If  a  foreigner  is  to  learn 
the  English  verb  to  afford,  let  him  begin  by  using  it  in 
such  sentences  as  I  can't  afford  it,  and  not  in  such  examples 
as  It  affords  me  the  necessary  opportunity.  If  we  are 
teaching  French,  let  us  first  use  del  in  the  sense  of  sky  and 
leave  the  idea  of  heaven  to  a  later  stage.  /  may  go  has 
more  than  one  meaning,  but  let  us  first  teach  it  in  the 
sense  of  Perhaps  I  shall  go  ;  the  other  varieties  are  not  of 
pressing  importance.  When  we  introduce  but,  let  us 
associate  it  with  its  usual  meaning  and  forget  for  the 
moment  that  semantic  variety  which  is  equivalent  to 
except. 

It  is  not  sufficient  for  us  to  adopt  the  general  principle 
of  gradation  ;  we  must  adopt  the  right  sort  of  gradation  ; 
for  we  can  easily  imagine  all  sorts  of  false  grading.  We 
can  imagine  a  teacher  refusing,  on  the  score  of  gradation, 

115 


THE   PRINCIPLES   OF  LANGUAGE-STUDY 

to  teach  irregular  forms  before  regular  ones,  and  justi- 
fying his  procedure  by  the  assertion  that  the  regular  is 
easy  and  the  irregular  difficult.  This  kind  of  gradation, 
however,  is  obviously  unsound,  seeing  that  some  of  the 
most  useful  words  in  most  languages  are  very  irregular. 
As  a  matter  of  fact,  in  a  sound  course  of  study  based 
on  the  principle  of  automatism  the  irregular  forms  are 
learnt  as  easily  as  (and  sometimes  more  easily  than) 
regular  forms. 

We  can  also  imagine  some  teachers  maintaining  (on 
grounds  of  gradation)  that  the  word  should  be  treated 
before  the  sentence.     They  would  say  that  it  is  easier  to 
assimilate  a  word  than  a  sentence,  that  what  is  easier 
should  come  first.    Others  might  say,  "  Teach  easy  words 
first  and  difficult  ones  later."     But  this  cannot  be  right, 
for  if  we  observed  this  rule  we  should  teach  a  Spaniard  or 
a  Frenchman  the  English  verb  to  comprehend  before  the 
verb  to  understand.     Gradation  does  not  necessarily  imply  | 
passing  from  the  easy  to  the  difficult,  but  it  always  does) 
imply  passing  from  the  more  important,  useful,  or  funda- ) 
mental  to  the  less  important,  useful,  or  fundamental.  / 
Now,  whatever  the  true  unit  of  speech  may  be,   our 
leading   semanticians   and   speech-psychologists   are  all 
agreed  that  this  unit  is  rarely  the  word,  but  generally  the 
word-group  or  sentence.     Consequently,  to  start  from 
the  word  is  not  only  bad  gradation  but  bad  semantics. 

We  have  heard  it  asserted  on  grounds  of  gradation  that 
the  written  form  of  a  language  should  be.studied  before  its 
spoken  form.  Here  again  we  find  the  same  misinterpreta- 
tion of  the  term  gradation  and  the  same  fallacy  of 
'  facility.'  If  relative  facility  is  to  be  the  basis  of  grada- 
tion, then  we  should  teach  the  geography  of  Portugal 
before  teaching  the  geography  of  the  British  Empire,  and 
we  should  postpone  our  study  of  chess  until  we  have 

116 


GRADATION 

become  expert  in  the  easier  game  of  noughts  and  crosses. 
To  learn  how  to  read  and  to  write  a  language  may  possibly 
be  easier  than  to  learn  how  to  speak  it  and  to  understand 
it  when  spoken,  but  this  has  no  bearing  on  the  subject  of 
gradation. 

Another  false  interpretation  of  the  principle  is  to 
assume  that  the  student  will  begin  by  using  incorrect  or 
pidgin-French  (or  whatever  the  language  may  be)  and 
will  gradually  become  more  perfect  *  with  practice  '  as  he 
goes  on.  Now  if  this  is  gradation,  it  is  a  particularly 
vicious  form,  and  in  flat  contradiction  to  the  principles  of 
habit -forming  and  accuracy. 

To  teach  to  adults  '  child-like  words  '  before  the  words 
used  by  adults  is  another  misinterpretation  of  gradation. 
We  do  indeed  see  classes  in  which  boys  or  girls  of  twelve 
or  thirteen  learn  to  recite  foreign  nursery  rhymes,  but  we 
doubt  whether  any  teacher  would  seriously  maintain  that 
words  such  as  dog  or  sheep  should  be  preceded  by  bow- 
wow or  baa-baa. 

Having  examined  some  faulty  and  vicious  manners  of 
interpreting  the  term  gradation,  let  us  now  proceed  to 
epitomize  a  few  rational  applications  of  the  principle  we 
have  set  forth,  and  let  us  assure  the  reader  that  each  one 
of  these  has  been  proved  to  be  psychologically  sound. 

(a)  Ears  before  Eyes.  —  All  fresh  language-material 
should  be  presented  in  its  oral  form  and  not  in  its  written 
form.  Sounds  should  first  be  practised  without  any 
reference  to  any  graphic  forms  of  representation ;  the 
ear,  not  the  eye,  is  the  organ  jDrovided  by  nature  for 
recognizing  and  assimilating  sounds.  Words  should 
first  be  heard  and  imitated  orally,  for  ideal  assimilation 
is  not  helped  but  hindered  when  the  written  form  is 
present. 

Fresh  word-groups  and  sentences  should  also  as  far  as 

117 


THE   PRINCIPLES   OF  LANGUAGE-STUDY 

possible  be  first  introduced  and  learnt  orally.  The  adult 
student  who  complains  that  the  process  is  too  difficult 
is  under  the  illusion  that  we  hear  with  our  eyes. 

(b)  Reception  before Production./-lt  is  quite  certain  that 
\    the  student  will  be  unable  to  reproduce  a  sound,  a  word, 
or  a  word-group  that  has  been  pronounced  to  him  until 
he  has  really  heard  the  model  that  he  is  called  upon  to 
imitate.     There   is    a   great    difference   between   really 
hearing  and  merely  imagining  that  one  has  heard  a 
/    sound  or  a  succession  of  sounds.     As  a  rule  we  do  not 
j    hear  what  is  actually  said  to  us  ;  we  merely  hear  what  we 
j    expect  to  hear.  /  Ask  the  average  foreigner  to  repeat  after 
i^  you  a  word  such  as  und' stand ;    instead  of  reproducing 
the  exaggeratedly  shortened  form  as  represented  above 
in  two  syllables,  he  will  say  understand  in  three  syllables. 
As  a  matter  of  fact,  he  is  under  the  impression  that  he 
heard  you  articulate  the  three  syllables,  and  consequently 
he  reproduces  what  he  thought  you  said.     Ask  the  aver- 
age foreigner  to  repeat  after  you  the  w^ord  turn  pro- 
nounced in  Southern  English  {i.e.  without  an  r)  and  he 
wall  insert  an  r  because  he  imagines  that  he  heard  one. 
The  sentence  il  dolt  venir  is  pronounced  by  the  average 
Frenchman  as  [idwavniir]  ;    pronounce  it  like  that  to 
the  average  English  student  of  French  and  ask  him  to 
imitate  you  ;    in  most  cases  you  will  obtain  what  the 
student  imagined  he  heard,  viz.  [il  dwa  venro]  (the  last 
word  having  a  remarkable  resemblance  to  the  English 
word  veneer). 

The  student  must  therefore  not  only  be  trained  to 
hear,  but  in  all  fairness  to  him  he  should  be  given  ample 
opportunity  of  hearing  the  sound,  word,  or  word-group 
that  he  will  be  called  upon  to  reproduce.  Let  him  hear  it 
several  times,  let  him  concentrate  his  attention  on  the 
succession  of  sounds  without  any  regard  to  its  written 

118 


GRADATION 

form  or  its  meaning.  Let  us  endeavour  as  far  as  possible 
to  give  the  student  two  or  even  more  separate  opportun- 
ities (with  appropriate  intervals)  of  truly  hearing  any 
given  sound,  word,  or  word-group  before  calling  upon 
him  to  imitate  the  model."^ 

(c)  Oral  Repetition  before  Reading, — Just  as  oral  repeti- 
tion should  be  preceded  by  a  period  of  audition,  so  should 
reading  be  preceded  by  oral  repetition.  Before  calling 
upon  a  pupil  to  read  off  from  the  blackboard  or  his  book 
a  word,  list  of  words,  sentence,  or  succession  of  sentences, 
let  us  first  ask  him  to  repeat  after  us  the  required  material. 
If  he  cannot  reproduce  to  our  satisfaction  a  sentence  that 
he  has  just  heard  from  our  lips,  he  will  certainly  be  un- 
able to  reproduce  the  sentence  by  the  process  of  reading. 

(d)  Immediate  Memory  before  Prolonged  Memory. — The 
teacher  pronounces  a  sound  or  a  succession  of  sounds 
(a  word,  a  word-group,  or  a  sentence).  A  few  seconds 
later  the  pupil  reproduces  what  he  has  heard  ;  he  does 
not  find  it  very  difficult  to  do  so,  for  the  sound  of  the 
teacher's  voice  is  still  ringing  in  his  ears  ;  in  his  imagina- 
tion he  can  still  hear  the  teacher's  voice,  and  he  has  but 
to  speak  in  unison  with  it.  The  sort  of  memory  which 
enables  him  to  reproduce  what  he  has  just  heard  is  called 
immediate  memory. 

Another  time  the  teacher  pronounces  a  sound  or  a 
succession  of  sounds.  The  next  day  the  pupil  is  called 
upon  (without  being  prompted)  to  reproduce  what  he 
heard  the  day  before.  He  may  fail  altogether  to  do  so,  or 
he  may  succeed.  That  sort  of  memory  which  enables 
him  to  reproduce  what  he  has  heard  one,  several,  or  many 
days  before  is  called  prolonged  memory.  Let  us  be  quite 
certain  that  we  understand  the  difference  between  these 
two  extreme  varieties  of  memory.  Let  us  choose  a  word 
in  a  language  unknown  to  us.     Let  this  be  the  Hungarian 

119 


THE  PRINCIPLES   OF  LANGUAGE-STUDY 

word  szenvedni,  meaning  to  suffer.  The  word  is  pro- 
nounced ['ssnvsdni]  ;  in  the  absence  of  a  teacher  let  us 
pronounce  the  word  ourselves  three  or  four  times.  .  .  .  Let 
us  take  our  eyes  from  the  book,  and  let  a  few  seconds 
pass.  .  .  .  How  do  you  say  to  suffer  in  Hungarian  ? 
['senvedni.]  Quite  correct ;  we  have  reproduced  the 
word  from  immediate  memory.  To-morrow  or  the  day 
after  let  us  ask  ourselves  how  they  express  to  suffer  in 
Hungarian.  If  we  are  able  to  answer  correctly  without 
referring  to  the  book,  it  will  be  by  dint  of  our  prolonged 
memory.  If  this  experiment  is  inconclusive,  let  us  take  a 
word-group,  a  sentence,  or  a  list  of  words  ;  we  shall  then 
realize  how  much  more  difficult  it  is  to  reproduce  new 
matter  after  the  sound  of  it  has  faded  from  our  ears. 

Let  us  remember  this  experiment  when  we  are  teaching; 
when  our  pupils  reproduce  correctly  (either  by  repetition 
or  by  translation)  what  they  have  heard  a  few  seconds 
(or  even  a  few  minutes)  before,  let  us  remember  that  we 
have  so  far  only  appealed  to  their  immediate  memory, 
and  let  us  not  expect  an  equally  satisfactory  result  when 
we  call  upon  them  to  reproduce  the  same  matter  the  next 
day  without  prompting.  To  expect  the  same  results  from 
the  prolonged  as  from  the  immediate  memory  implies  a 
faulty  grasp  of  the  principle  of  gradation.  Let  us  give 
our  pupils  ample  opportunities,  on  an  appropriate  number 
of  occasions,  of  reproducing  matter  heard  a  few  moments 
previously ;  this  will  strengthen  their  associations  and 
when  later  on  we  appeal  to  their  prolonged  memory,  the 
results  will  be  satisfactory. 

(e)  Chorus-work  before  Individual  Work. — Before  we  call 
on  an  individual  pupil  to  articulate  a  sound  or  a  suc- 
cession of  sounds,  let  the  work  be  done  in  chorus  on  two 
or  more  different  occasions.  For  an  individual  to  have 
to  submit  his  tentative  efforts  to  the  criticism  and  perhaps 

120 


GRADATION 

laughter  of  his  fellow-pupils  is  not  conducive  to  good 
results.  Let  the  individual  pupils  test  their  articulation 
in  company  with  others,  and  when  by  so  doing  they  have 
gained  a  certain  mastery  of  what  they  have  to  repeat  and 
have  thereby  gained  a  certain  degree  of  confidence,  let 
them  proceed  to  reproduce  singly  what  they  have 
previously  phonated  together. 

(/)  Drill-work  before  Free  Work. — This  is  perhaps  the 
most  important  of  the  precepts  to  be  observed  in  con- 
nexion with  gradation.  The  forms  of  exercise  to  which 
the  general  term  drill-work  may  be  applied  are  many 
and  varied.  Some  of  them  are  calculated  to  train  the 
student  in  perceiving  and  discriminating  the  sounds  of 
which  the  language  is  composed  ;  others  are  articulation 
exercises  ;  there  are  also  special  forms  of  drill-work  which 
aim  at  securing  fluency  and  accuracy  in  producing  suc- 
cessions of  syllables.  The  question-and-answer  method 
may  be  embodied  in  many  interesting  forms  of  drill- 
work  ;  there  exist  also  many  varieties  of  action  drill, 
conversion  drill,  translation  drill,  and  grammar  drill.  All 
these  forms  are  characterized  by  common  attributes  : 
they  are  all  systematic,  highly  organized,  and  susceptible 
of  infinite  gradation;  the  work  is  methodical  and  proceeds 
steadily  and  continuously  without  breaks  or  interrup- 
tions. Most  forms  of  drill- work  have  been  composed  and 
are  carried  out  in  such  a  way  as  to  preclude  the  possibility 
of  the  student's  forming  bad  habits.  Indeed,  if  the  work 
is  carried  out  as  designed  the  element  of  error  should 
be  almost  entirely  excluded. 

^ow  free  work  in  all  its  varied. forms,  such  as  free  con- 
versation, free  translation,  and  free  composition,  differs 
greatly  from  drill-work,  and  we  can  all  testify  to  the 
ludicrous  results  these  forms  of  work  yield  when  per- 
formed by  one  who  has  had  no  previous  drilling.     If  the 

121 


THE   PRINCIPLES   OF  LANGUAGE- STUDY 

student  has  not  been  put  through  a  proper  course  of  drill- 
work,  all  his  efforts  at  free  work  will  be  based  on  that 
most  unnatural  and  vicious  of  processes — conventional 
translation  from  the  mother-tongue.  The  undrilled 
French  student  will  be  speaking  and  writing  not  English 
as  we  understand  the  term,  but  anglicized  French. 
Having  formed  no  English  language  habits,  he  will  cast 
all  his  thoughts  in  the  French  mould,  and  when  the  exact 
English  equivalents  to  his  French  words  and  phrases  are 
missing  he  will  break  down. 

Free  w^ork  without  the  essential  preparation  means 
faulty  work,  uncertain  and  erratic  work  ;  it  means  the 
formation  of  nearly  all  the  bad  habits  which  characterize 
the  average  student  and  which  mar  his  v/ork. 


122 


CHAPTER  XI 

PROPORTION 

IN  language-study  as  in  any  other  branch  of  activity 
we  must  observe  a  sense  of  proportion  ;  we  must 
pay  due  attention  to  the  variou^jaspects  of  the  ques- 
tion in  order  to  ensure  a  harmonious  whole.  It  is  possible 
to  devote  too  much  time  and  effort  to  a  given  aspect  or 
branch  ;  this  is  the  case  when  such  time  and  effort  are 
spent  at  the  expense  of  an  aspect  or  branch  of  equal  or  of 
greater  importance.  It  is  necessary,  for  instance,  to  give 
much  attention  to  the  understanding  of  the  language  as 
spoken  rapidly  and  idiomatically  by  natives ;  but  if  this 
occupies  the  whole  of  our  time  we  shall  be  able  to  do 
nothing  else,  and  shall  neither  learn  to  speak,  nor  to 
read,  nor  to  write.  This  would  be  an  obvious  violation 
of  the  principle  of  proportion.  It  is  necessary  to  know 
something  of  the  grammar  of  the  language,  but  if  we 
devote  every  lesson  of  a  three  years'  course  to  the 
study  of  grammar  we  shall  again  be  offending  against 
this  principle. 

We  tend  to  give  too  much  attention  to  things  which 
interest  us,  and  too  little  to  those  things  in  which  we  are 
not  particularly  interested.  Such  inequality  of  treatment 
is  niore  particularly  apt  to  occur  in  these  days  of  special- 
ization ;  the  intonation  specialist  thinks  of  little  but 
intonation,  and  tends  to  think  that  everything  else  is 
of  secondary  importance  ;  the  phonetician  is  so  keenly 

123 


THE  PRINCIPLES   OF  LANGUAGE -STUDY 

alive  to  the  immense  importance  of  ear-training  and  of 
correct  articulation  that  he  may  tend  to  dismiss  all  other 
things  as  trivialities  ;  the  grammarian  grinds  away  at 
declensions  and  conjugations  regardless  of  the  existence 
of  such  things  as  sounds  and  tones  ;  the  semantician  is  so 
intent  on  meanings  that  all  has  to  be  sacrificed  to  his 
special  branch. 

The  most  typical  example  of  disproportionate  treat- 
ment is,  of  course,  that  afforded  by  the  orthographist  of 
the  old  school ;  for  him  language  is  nothing  but  a  set  of 
spelling  rules  ;  pronunciation  for  him  is  the  interpreta- 
tion of  spellings  ;  grammar  is  a  branch  of  orthography, 
and  meanings  themselves  are  largely  dependent  on  the 
way  a  word  is  spelt.  In  the  present-day  reaction  against 
the  orthographist  we  may  expect  a  swing  to  the  other 
extreme,  and  we  may  find  schoolmasters  welcoming 
spelling  mistakes  as  the  signs  of  a  healthy  tendency 
towards  phoneticism. 

Already  the  reaction  against  the  over-use  and  abuse  of 
translation  exercises  has  resulted  in  an  almost  equally 
grave  over-use  and  abuse  of  the  '  direct  '  method. 

There  are,  however,  times  when  a  seemingly  undue  pro- 
portion of  attention  should  be  directed  to  certain  things, 
notably  when  we  have  to  react  against  a  vicious  tendency. 
If  our  student  is  too  keenly  interested  in  orthography 
and  oblivious  to  the  importance  of  phonetics,  we  may  be 
justified  in  excluding  orthography  from  his  programme. 
If  he  is  morbidly  interested  in  grammar  and  analysis,  we 
may  find  it  necessary  to  give  him  overdoses  of  semantics 
and  unconscious  assimilation  in  order  to  re-establish  some 
sort  of  equilibrium.  With  the  student  who  refuses  to 
learn  a  word  until  he  sees  it  written  we  must  for  some 
time  make  an  exclusive  and  seemingly  disproportionate 
use  of  oral  work  and  phonetic  writing. 

124 


PROPORTION 

The  principle  of  proportion,  then,  does  not  necessarily 
imply  equality  of  treatment  nor  even  a  fixed  standard 
of  ratios  ;  it  simply  means  that  all  the  items  in  the 
whole  range  of  subjects  and  aspects  must  receive  an 
appropriate  degree  of  attention,  so  that  the  student's 
knowledge  of  them  may  ultimately  form  a  harmonious 
whole. 

It  is  impossible  to  observe  the  principle  of  proportion 
without  having  in  view  the  ultimate  aim  of  the  student. 
If  his  sole  object  is  to  become  a  master  of  colloquial 
expression,  our  sense  of  proportion  will  tell  us  to  exclude 
in  a  very  large  measure  the  study  of  the  conventional 
orthography. 

The  ultimate  aim  of  most  students  is  fourfold  : 

(a)  To    understand    the    language    when    spoken 

rapidly  by  natives. 
(6)  To    speak    the    language    in    the    manner    of 

natives, 
(c)  To   understand    the    language    as    written   by 

natives  (i.e.  to  read  the  language). 
{d)  To    write   the    language    in    the    manner    of 

natives. 

Each  of  these  four  aspects  requires  special  methods  of 
teaching.  A  method  or  device  which  will  rapidly  enable 
the  student  to  understand  the  language  when  spoken  will 
be  inefficacious  as  a  method  for  teaching  him  to  produce 
a  written  composition.  No  amount  of  composition 
work,  on  the  other  hand,  will  teach  him  how  to  under- 
stand what  is  rapidly  uttered  by  natives.  If  (as  is 
freely  admitted)  a  command  of  the  spoken  language  is  a 
great  help  towards  acquiring  command  of  the  written, 
the  converse  is  not  the  case  ;  proficiency  in  written  work 
does  not  imply  progress  in  oral  work.     To  pay  too  much 

125 


THE  PRINCIPLES   OF  LANGUAGE-STUDY 

or  too  little  attention  to  any  of  these  four  aspects  is  a 
violation  of  the  principle  of  proportion. 

The  principle  may  also  be  violated  by  paying  too  much 
or  too  little  attention  to  any  of  the  five  chief  branches 
of  practical  linguistics  :  phonetics,  orthography,  word- 
building,  sentence-building,  and  semantics.  Let  us  pass 
them  in  review  in  order  to  make  quite  sure  that  we  under- 
stand the  scope  of  each  and  have  properly  discriminated 
between  them. 

Phonetics  teaches  us  how  to  recognize  and  how  to  make 
the  sounds  of  which  the  language  is  composed  ;  it 
teaches  us  the  difference  between  two  or  more  sounds 
which  resemble  each  other,  and  between  a  given  foreign 
sound  and  its  nearest  native  equivalent. 

Orthography  (with  which  we  may  associate  orthoepy) 
teaches  us  how  to  spell  what  we  have  already  learnt  by 
ear  ;  it  also  teaches  us  how  to  pronounce  what  we  have 
learnt  by  eye  from  an  ordinary  orthographic  text. 

Word-building  (accidence  and  etymology)  teaches  us 
inflexions,  prefixes,  and  suffixes;  and  how  to  use  them, 
how  to  form  plurals  from  singulars,  accusatives  from 
nominatives,  finite  tenses  from  infinitives  ;  most  of  the 
mysteries  of  declension  and  conjugation  are  included 
under  this  heading  ;  the  collecting  of  word-families  per- 
tains to  this  branch. 

§entence-building  (syntax  and  analysis)  teaches  us  how 
to  combine  w^ords  into  sentences,  how  to  form  compound 
tenses,  phrases,  and  clauses  ;  it  teaches  us  the  places 
of  the  various  sentence-components,  the  nature  and 
use  of  concord  or  agreement ;  it  shows  us  the  differ- 
ences between  regular  and  irregular  sentences.  When 
properly  systematized  (according  to  a  special  science 
to  which  the  name  of  '  ergonics '  has  been  given) 
this   particular  branch  of  linguistics  shows  us  how  to 

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PROPORTION 

form  the  largest  possible  number  of  sentences  with  the 
fewest  words. 

Semantics  teaches  us  the  meaning  of  words,  of  in- 
flexions, and  of  compounds  ;  it  shows  us  how  to  trans- 
form our  thoughts  into  language,  to  select  the  most 
appropriate  word  or  form,  and  to  interpret  correctly  what 
we  hear  and  read.  It  is  more  especially  this  branch 
which  teaches  us  the  differences  in  style  and  dialect,  and 
enables  us  to  distinguish  the  colloquial  from  the  classical 
and  to  keep  either  from  contaminating  the  other. 

If  we  are  to  judge  by  the  average  teacher  and  the 
average  language-course,  the  principle  of  proportion  is 
usually  violated  by  teaching  : 

(a)  No  phonetics  at  all. 

{h)  Too  much  orthography  or  orthoepy. 

(c)  Too  much  word-building. 

(d)  Too  little  sentence-building. 

(e)  Practically  no  semantics. 

The  principle  of  proportion  may  also  be  observed  or 
violated  in  the  selection  of  vocabularies  and  of  gram- 
matical material.  To  include  in  early  lessons  w^ords  or 
forms  which  are  comparatively  rare,  archaic,  and  useless, 
while  excluding  some  of  the  commonest  and  most  useful 
items  of  language-material,  is  an  offence  not  only  against 
the  principle  of  gradation  but  also  against  the  principle 
of  proportion.  Too  little  attention  also  is  usually  paid 
to  ensuring  a  just  proportion  between  the  various  parts 
of  speech.  There  is  a  fairly  well  defined  series  of  laws 
which  determine  the  relative  number  of  nouns,  verbs,  and 
adjectives  occurring  in  a  given  vocabulary  radius,  and 
with  the  growing  attention  which  is  being  given  to  this 
sort  of  statistical  work  these  laws  are  standing  out  more 
clearly  and  are  coming  to  be  better  understood.      We 

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THE  PRINCIPLES   OF  LANGUAGE-STUDY 

have  also  to  note  a  regrettable  tendency  to  give  preference 
in  vocabularies  to  words  of  special  utility  (such  as  names 
of  plants,  animals,  parts  of  the  body,  tools,  implements, 
and  such-like  semi-technical  words)  and  to  neglect  un- 
duly words  of  general  utility,  words  which  may  occur  in 
any  context  and  which  are  common  to  any  subject. 
This  is  a  particularly  grave  case  of  disproportion  when 
we  consider  that  the  bulk  of  any  given  text  (probably 
from  80  per  cent,  to  90  per  cent,  of  it)  is  made  up  of 
these  general  words. 

Proportion  must  be  observed  in  determining  the 
respective  quantities  of  drill-work  and  free  work,  of 
translation- work  and  '  direct  work,'  of  intensive  reading 
and  extensive  reading,  of  chorus-work  and  individual 
work  needed  ;  throughout  the  whole  range  of  the  subject 
there  are  possibilities  of  good  or  of  bad  proportion.  It  is 
for  the  teacher  or  for  the  designer  of  language-courses  to 
see  that  the  principle  is  reasonably  well  observed. 


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CHAPTER    XII 

CONCRETENESS 

SUCH  expressions  as  for  instance,  for  example,  or  here 
is  a  case  in  point  are  fairly  common  in  our  speech. 
Whenever  we  hear  somebody  explaining  something 
we  may  be  certain  that  one  of  these  expressions  will  occur 
not  once  but  many  times.  When  we  ourselves  set  out  to 
explain  anything  we  may  be  quite  sure  that  in  a  very  few 
moments  we  shall  use  one  of  the  expressions  in  question, 
and  indeed  our  certainty  is  justified  in  almost  every  case. 
The  reason  for  using  such  phrases  is  quite  clear  ;  every 
time  we  do  so  it  is  because  we  feel  instinctively  that  we 
have  just  made  a  statement  which  is  not  sufficiently  ex- 
plicit; we  are  more  or  less  aware  that  we  have  expressed 
something  in  terms  rather  too  abstract,  and  we  wish  to 
reduce  our  statement  to  more  concrete  terms  ;  we  feel 
the  necessity  for  concreteness.  There  is  a  similar  reason 
for  using  such  expressions  as  in  other  terms,  in  other  words, 
or  that  is  to  say.  We  feel  in  these  cases  that  an  explana- 
tion just  given  is  wanting  in  lucidity,  and  we  add  a 
supplementary  explanation  in  order  to  make  our  point 
more  concrete. 

The  substance  of  the  principle  of  concreteness  is  con- 
tained in  the  maxim,  "  Example  is  better  than  precept  "  ; 
we  intuitively  know^  this  to  be  true,  and  our  own  ex- 
perience confirms  our  judgment ;  we  remember  on  how 
many  occasions  a  few  typical  examples  have  been  of 
greater  help  to  our  understanding  than  the  best-worded 

0  129 


THE   PRINCIPLES   OF  LANGUAGE-STUDY 


definitions  or  the  most  detailed  descriptions.  Psycho- 
logists confirm  us  in  our  impression  and  assure  us  that 
it  is  correct ;  indeed,  one  of  the  fundamental  principles 
of  the  psychology  of  study  is  that  we  must  work  from  the 
concrete  to  the  abstract. 

Let  us  take  a  concrete  example  to  serve  as  an  illustra- 
tion. One  of  the  things  we  have  to  teach  the  French 
student  of  English  is  that  anterior  duration  is  expressed 
in  English  by  the  use  of  the  perfect  tenses  (if  possible  in 
their  progressive  form)  and  not  by  the  use  of  the  ordinary 
non-perfect  tenses  as  in  French,  and  that  depuis  or  its 
equivalent  is  not  merely  since.  The  whole  point  can 
be  expressed  more  or  less  abstractly  by  the  following 
formula  : 


Fre7ich 

Non-perfect   tense -j- depuis  ^ 
-f  measure  of  duration 
or 
II  f/+ (non-perfect  tense  of 
ai;otV)-|- measure  of  dura- 
tion -f-  ?W€  -f  non-perfect 
tense 

Non-perfect    tense -\- depuis 
+term  signifying  initial  [ 
moment  of  duration 


English 


{ Corresponding  perfect  (pro- 

j      gressive)  tense  -|-  {for)-{- 

measure  of  duration. 


'  Corresponding  perfect  (pro- 
gressive) tense  -\-  sitwt 
-f  term  signifying  initial 
moment  of  duration. 

Now  this  is  a  very  concise  formula  and  probably  covers 
the  whole  of  the  ground.  But  it  is  expressed  in  such 
abstract  terms  that  we  cannot  expect  the  average  student 
to  grasp  it,  still  less  to  apply  it  in  his  speech.  We  can 
concretize  it  by  furnishing  one  or  two  typical  examples. 
We  can  say  :  "  Look  at  the  clock,  it's  just  half-past 
twelve — we  started  this  lesson  at  twelve,  didn't  we  ? 
Well,  it  means  that  we  have  been  working  since  twelve 
o'clock  ;  we  have  been  working  for  half  an  hour.     How 

130 


CONCRETENESS 

long  have  we  been  working  ?  For  half  an  hour.  Since 
when  have  we  been  working  ?  Since  twelve  o'clock. 
Repeat  that  after  me.  Repeat  it  again.  Now  just  note 
that  we  say  We  have  been  working,  not  We  work  or  We  are 
working.  Now,  then,  how  do  you  say  Nous  travaillons 
depuis  midi  ?  And  Nous  travaillons  depuis  une  demi- 
heure  ?  Note  that  nous  sommes  sometimes  becomes  we 
have  heen^ 

That  would  be  a  fairly  concrete  (but  not  ideally  con- 
crete) way  of  teaching  the  point  in  question.  The 
average  student  would  grasp  the  point,  and  the  con- 
scientious student  would  probably  observe  it  and  in- 
corporate it  into  his  usage. 

But  the  principle  of  concreteness  goes  beyond  this  ;  it 
does  not  merely  state  that  examples  of  every  rule  should 
be  given,  it  specifies  various  degrees  and  various  kinds  of 
concreteness.  An  example  in  itself  is  more  concrete  than 
a  rule,  but  one  example  may  be  more  concrete  than 
another  ;  let  us  therefore  choose  the  more  concrete  ex- 
amples, that  is  to  say,  those  which  will  create  the  strongest 
semantic  associations.  Concreteness  will  be  the  chief 
determining  factor  in  the  choice  of  the  early  vocabularies; 
it  will  tend  to  make  us  give  a  preference  to  words  and 
compounds  lending  themselves  to  '  direct '  work.  It  will 
not,  however,  be  the  sole  factor,  for  if  we  decided  to  make 
an  exclusive  use  of  such  words  it  would  be  at  the  expense 
of  the  principle  of  proportion. 

Here  is  another  example  of  what  is  implied  by  con- 
creteness. It  often  occurs  that  a  student  will  learn  how 
to  construct  a  sentence — indeed,  he  may  even  memorize 
it — and  yet  fail  to  realize  that  it  is  a  real  living  sentence, 
an  integral  part  of  his  linguistic  repertory  ready  for  im- 
mediate use.  He  may  have  learnt  the  construction 
Would  you  mind ing  and  be  able  to  translate  it  back- 

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THE  PRINCIPLES   OF  LANGUAGE- STUDY 

wards  and  forwards  and  invariably  to  quote  it  in  his  list 
of  compounds  requiring  the  use  of  the  m^-form,  and  yet, 
instead  of  using  it  in  actual  practice,  may  replace  it  by 
Would  you  be  so  kind  as  to  or  some  such  stilted  equivalent. 
In  such  cases  we  may  be  sure  that  the  principle  of  con- 
creteness  has  not  been  sufficiently  observed. 

The  '  direct  methodists  '  of  the  more  extreme  type 
interpret  concreteness  in  a  curious  way,  and  identify  it 
with  the  non-translation  principle  and  with  the  principle 
of  the  exclusion  of  the  mother-tongue  as  a  vehicular 
language.  They  tend  to  think  that  by  keeping  English 
out  of  the  French  lesson,  the  teacher  causes  French  to  be 
acquired  concretely.  In  certain  cases  this  is  true,  but 
there  are  probably  far  more  contrary  cases. 

In  the  example  relating  to  the  expression  of  anterior 
duration  the  concreteness  consists  very  largely  in  pointing 
out  the  difference  of  usage  in  the  two  languages.  In 
order  to  make  the  construction  Would  you  mind  perfectly 
concrete  to  a  Frenchman,  we  must  insist  on  its  semantic 
equivalence  to  his  Est-ce  que  ga  ne  vousferait  rien  de.  One 
of  the  things  we  must  do  to  concretize  the  difference  be- 
tween /  did  so,  So  I  did,  and  So  did  /,  is  to  furnish  the 
student  with  his  respective  native  equivalents. 

There  are  four  ways  and  four  ways  only  of  furnishing 
a  student  with  the  meaning  of  given  foreign  units  : 

(1)  By  immediate  association,  as  when  we  point  to  the 
object  or  a  picture  of  the  object  designated  by  a  noun  or 
pronoun,  when  we  perform  the  action  designated  by  a 
verb,  when  w^e  point  to  a  real  example  of  the  quality 
designated  by  an  adjective,  or  when  we  demonstrate  in 
similar  ways  that  which  is  designated  by  a  preposition  of 
place  or  certain  categories  of  adverbs. 

(2)  By  translation,  as  when  we  give  the  nearest  native 
equivalent  or  equivalents  of  the  foreign  unit. 

182 


CONCRETENESS 

(3)  By  definition,  as  when  we  give  a  synonym  or  para- 
^  phrase  of  the  word  or  word-group  or  a  description  of  that 
which  is  designated  by  it. 

(4>)  By  context,  as  when  we  embody  the  unit  in  sen- 
tences which  will  make  its  meaning  clear  (e.g.  January  is 
the  first  month  of  the  year  ;  London  is  the  capital  of 
England). 

These  four  methods  or  modes  of  '  semanticizing '  a 
unit  are  here  given  in  order  of  what  are  generally  their 
relative  degrees  of  concreteness.  There  may,  however, 
be  some  cases  in  which  translation  will  be  more  con- 
crete than  immediate  association.  Translation  is  not 
in  itself  necessarily  '  indirect '  (or  '  inconcrete,'  as 
we  should  prefer  to  express  it) ;  it  may  be  relatively 
indirect  when  compared  with  good  examples  of  imme- 
diate association,  but  it  is  undoubtedly  more  '  direct ' 
than  a  cumbrous  or  vague  definition,  or  an  obscure 
context. 

The  following  precepts  may  serve  as  concrete  examples 
of  the  way  we  can  carry  the  principles  of  concreteness 
into  practice  : 

(1)  Let  the  example  precede  or  even  replace  the  rule. 
A  well-chosen  example  or  set  of  examples  may  so  com- 
pletely embody  the  rule  that  the  rule  itself  wall  be 
superfluous. 

(2)  Give  many  examples  to  each  important  rule.  We 
have  noted  that  the  suggested  treatment  of  the  problem 
of  anterior  duration  was  not  an  ideal  one.  In  order  to 
make  it  ideal  we  should  have  taken  a  second  example 
(e.g.  How  long  have  you  been  learning  English  ?)  and  still 
more  examples  (e.g.  How  long  have  yon  been  in  this  room  ? 
— been  living  in  England  ? — been  living  at  your  present 
address  ?  Have  you  been  sitting  here  since  twelve  o'clock 
or  since  a  quarter  past  twelve  ?     How  long  has  France  been 

183 


THE  PRINCIPLES  OF  LANGUAGE-STUDY 

a  republic  ?),  Too  often  the  teacher  imagines  that  one 
example  constitutes  a  complete  exposition  of  a  given 
point :  whereas  in  reality  it  is  by  finding  (consciously  or 
unconsciously)  the  common  element  in  many  examples 
that  we  come  to  grasp  the  usage  exemplified. 

(3)  When  teaching  or  alluding  to  the  peculiarities  con- 
nected with  nouns,  choose  as  examples  the  nouns  which 
are  the  names  of  various  objects  actually  in  the  room, 
and  in  each  case  point  to  or  handle  the  object  in 
question.  Handling  pencils,  pens,  and  books  while 
talking  about  them  very  much  facilitates  the  grasping 
of  principles  of  declension. 

(4)  When  teaching  or  alluding  to  the  peculiarities  con- 
nected with  verbal  forms,  choose  as  examples  verbs  such 
as  take^  put,  see,  go,  come,  sit,  stand,  etc. — that  is  to  say, 
verbs  that  can  be  '  acted.'  Present,  past,  and  future 
tenses  are  much  more  easily  distinguished  and  retained  if 
the  teacher  illustrates  them  by  actions.  {In  a  moment  I 
shall  take  the  book — Je  prendrai  le  livre.  Touvrirai  le  livre 
— Touvre  le  livre — Tai  ouvert  le  livre.)  If  a  Frenchman 
cannot  grasp  the  difference  between  to  go  in  and  to  come 
in,  it  is  because  the  explanations  given  to  him  are  lacking 
in  concreteness. 

(5)  When  teaching  or  alluding  to  the  peculiarities 
connected  with  adjectives,  choose  as  examples  such 
words  as  black,  white,  large,  small,  round,  square,  etc., 
and  avoid  the  traditional  good,  bad,  beautiful,  idle, 
diligent,  etc. 

(6)  When  teaching  or  alluding  to  the  peculiarities  and 
semantic  values  of  prepositions  choose  as  far  as  possible 
prepositions  such  as  in,  on,  under,  over,  in  front  of,  behind, 
beside,  etc.  Useful  work  in  this  connexion  can  be  done 
with  a  match  and  a  matchbox  (in  the  box,  on  the  box,  under 
the  box,  etc.,  etc.). 

184 


CONCRETENESS 

(7)  Choose  as  many  real  examples  as  possible,  ex- 
amples suggested  by  present  and  actual  conditions.  Do 
not  teach  the  mechanism  of  direct  and  indirect  objects  by 
allusions  to  imaginary  farmers  giving  imaginary  oats  to 
imaginary  horses,  but  give  books,  pencils,  and  pens  to  the 
students  and  make  them  give  them  to  you,  and  then  talk 
to  them  about  what  you  are  doing.  Do  not  illustrate 
the  active  and  passive  voices  by  reference  to  men  beating 
boys  and  boys  being  beaten,  but  speak  about  writing 
words  and  words  being  written  or  about  speaking 
English  and  English  being  spoken. 

(8)  In  as  many  cases  as  possible  cause  the  student  to 
make  active  use  of  any  form  he  has  just  learijt.  When 
you  have  taught  him  to  say  /  donH  understand  give  him 
an  opportunity  of  using  the  sentence.  If  you  teach  him 
to  say  Ifs  time  to  stop  see  that  he  duly  makes  use  of  the 
expression  at  the  end  of  the  lesson. 

(9)  Encourage  gestures,  even  in  the  case  of  English 
students.     In  the  earlier  stages  they  should  shake  their 

-heads  when  uttering  a  negative  sentence,  raise  their  eye- 
brows when  using  an  interrogative  form,  and  use  other 
appropriate  gestures  for  such  words  as  here^  theret  me, 
that,  these,  etc. 

In  short,  observe  the  principle  of  concreteness  by 
using  examples,  many  examples,  cumulative  examples, 
real  examples,  and  examples  embodying  the  personal 
interest. 


185 


CHAPTER  XIII 
INTEREST 

WE  have  laid  great  stress  on  the  necessity  for 
drill-hke  work,  for  mechanical  work,  for  exer- 
cises calculated  to  secure  automatism,  for 
habit-forming  types  of  work.  It  has  even  seemed  at 
times  that  we  take  a  malicious  pleasure  in  pillorying  and 
condemning  precisely  those  forms  of  work  which  are 
generally  the  most  attractive  to  the  average  student. 
"The  WTiter  of  this  book,"  some  may  say,  "takes  a  savage 
delight  in  reproving  teacher  and  student  whenever  they 
contemplate  work  of  an  interesting  nature,  heads  them 
off  whenever  they  approach  anything  resembling  intel- 
lectual work,  and  turns  them  into  channels  of  routine  and 
repetition.  He  positively  gloats  over  words  like  '  auto- 
mat icity,'  '  passivity,'  '  mechanism,'  or  '  unconscious 
assimilation,'  and  apparently  glories  in  the  theory  that 
language-learning  like  life  itself  should  be  '  one  demd 
horrid  grind.'  " 

We  readily  plead  guilty  to  a  firm  insistence  on  habit - 
forming  exercises  and  drills,  but  continue  to  urge  in 
mitigation  that  the  practical  study  of  language,  the 
mastery  of  any  form  of  actual  speech,  is  a  habit-forming 
process  and  little  else.  We  must  have  the  courage  and 
honesty  to  face  facts  as  we  find  them  :  a  language  cannot 
be  mastered  by  learning  interesting  things  about  that 
language,  but  only  by  assimilating  the  material  of  which 
that  language  is  made  up. 

186 


INTEREST 

But  our  attitude,  far  from  being  a  pessimistic  one,  is 
positively  optimistic.  We  are  prepared  to  deny  most 
emphatically  that  good  drill-work  is  dull  and  uninter- 
esting, and  if  some  teachers  make  it  so  it  is  our  duty  to 
tell  them  not  to.  Those  who  have  seen  the  sort  of 
lessons  that  embody  the  forms  of  teaching  which  result 
from  the  rigid  observance  of  these  principles  all  testify 
that  they  are  '  live  '  lessons  (to  use  the  term  they  most 
generally  employ),  that  the  students  are  keen  and  the 
teachers  enthusiastic. 

It  is  only  too  evident  that  every  lesson  must  be  made 
as  interesting  as  is  compatible  with  pedagogic  soundness. 
Few  people  learn  anything  well  unless  they  are  interested 
in  what  they  are  learning.  Hope  of  reward  and  fear  of 
punishment  are  certainly  stimuh  to  work,  but  very  poor 
stimuli  compared  with  that  represented  by  interest.  If 
the  method  is  the  machinery  of  language-study  (or  any 
other  study  for  the  matter  of  that),  then  interest  is  the 
motive  power.  Be  the  clock  ever  so  well  and  ingeniously 
constructed,  it  will  not  go  without  some  sort  of  main- 
spring ;  be  the  method  ever  so  efficient  as  a  method,  it 
will  not  work  unless  the  student  is  interested.  All  these 
statements  are  of  course  truisms  and  are  accepted  as 
axiomatic  ;  the  trouble  comes  when  we  discuss  the 
means  by  which  interest  can  be  induced  and  maintained, 
for  we  are  not  all  in  agreement  on  this  point. 

There  is,  too,  the  question  of  intrinsic  and  extrinsic 
interest ;  the  subject  may  be  interesting  in  itself  or  it 
may  derive  an  artificial  sort  of  interest  from  some  attend- 
ant circumstance,  such  as  the  hope  of  reward  and  fear  of 
non-success  and  all  that  that  may  imply. 

But  a  point  arises  at  the  outset  which  deserves  our 
attention.  A  fallacy  exists  in  connexion  with  interest,  a 
fallacy  which  is  the  cause  of  much  error  and  of  much  bad 

137 


THE  PRINCIPLES   OF  LANGUAGE -STUDY 

teaching.  This  fallacy  when  reduced  to  the  absurd  con- 
sists in  saying,  "  We  can  make  a  subject  of  study  interest- 
ing by  changing  the  subject  of  study."  Now  obviously  it 
is  absurd  to  say  that  we  can  make  the  study  of  French 
interesting  by  teaching  geometry  in  its  stead,  or  that  we 
can  make  arithmetic  interesting  by  replacing  the  arith- 
metic lesson  by  a  history  lesson.  And  yet  this  is  the  sort 
of  thing  that  frequently  does  take  place  in  some  form 
or  other. 

It  is  necessary  that  the  student  shall  learn  how  to 
understand  spoken  French,  spoken  Enghsh,  or  spoken 
Pekingese  ;  it  is  assumed  that  the  necessary  phonetic  and 
oral  repetition  work  will  be  uninteresting,  so  we  change 
the  subject  and  teach  the  student  to  read  French,  English, 
or  Mandarin  Chinese,  or  to  analyse  these  languages  or  to 
construct  sentences  in  them  by  synthesis.  Now  reading 
and  analysis  and  synthesis  may  to  some  people  be  more 
interesting  than  ear-training  and  oral  memorizing,  but 
whether  this  is  the  case  or  not  it  is  certainly  beyond  the 
point.  If  we  wish  to  learn  to  read,  let  us  read  ;  if  we 
wish  to  do  analytic  and  synthetic  work,  let  us  analyse 
and  synthesize ;  but  if  the  object  of  our  study  happens 
to  be  the  command  of  the  spoken  language,  it  is  no  use 
to  amuse  ourselves  by  doing  work  which  does  not 
further  our  aim. 

"  Parrot- work  is  so  monotonous,  uninspiring,  and  un- 
interesting: let  us  rather  translate  the  work  of  some 
author  into  our  mother-tongue. ' '  "I  don't  find  the  study 
of  the  colloquial  language  elevating :  I  prefer  to  work  at 
the  classical."  Very  well,  we  will  not  quarrel  about 
tastes,  but  we  will  ask  you  to  make  it  quite  clear  what  you 
are  setting  out  to  learn  and  what  your  object  really  is  ; 
when  we  have  ascertained  that,  we  will  see  how  we 
can    make  your  path  an   easy  and  pleasant  one.     A 

188 


INTEREST 

journey  to  London  may  or  may  not  be  an  interesting 
one,  but  if  your  object  is  to  get  to  London  it  is  no 
use  taking  a  ticket  to  the  Isle  of  Wight  or  to  the 
Highlands  of  Scotland,  however  interesting  such 
journeys  may  be. 

The  general  tendency  among  educationalists  to-day  is 
toward^  interesting  methods,  methods  involving  the 
intelligent  use  of  the  intelligence,  methods  which  develop 
the  reasoning  capacities,  methods  which  form  the  judg- 
ment, which  proceed  from  the  trivial,  familiar,  and 
known  towards  the  more  profound,  unfamiliar,  and  un- 
known. Geography  is  no  longer  a  process  of  learning 
lists  of  place-names  by  heart,  history  is  no  longer 
represented  as  a  catalogue  of  dates,  arithmetic  is  taught 
by  playing  with  cubes,  chemistry  is  presented  as  a  series 
of  experimeft^Jn  the  laboratory,  botany  and  geology 
are  studied  in  Oi?  field.  The  old  cramming  process  is 
being  replaced  by  the  method  of  discovery ;  the 
teacher  furnishes  the  documents  and  the  students 
discover  the  rules;  the  teacher  suggests  the  problems 
and  the  pupils  set  their  wits  to  work  and  find  out  the 
solutions.  All  of  which  is  very  interesting  and,  on  the 
whole,  very  good. 

There  is,  howxver,  this  danger  :  these  interesting  and 
mind-developing  methods  do  not  tend  towards  auto- 
matism and  habit-formation ;  they  are,  indeed,  not  in- 
tended to  foster  any  form  of  mechanical  command.       / 

Proficiency  in  shorthand  cannot  be  gained  by  any 
method  of  discovery,  and  the  capacity  for  doing  good 
and  rapid  work  on  a  typewriter  is  not  attained  by  the 
heuristic  method.  Mathematics  is  a  science,  but  the 
absolute  mastery  of  the  multiplication  table  is  an  art  and 
cannot  be  gained  by  the  exclusive  practice  of  playing 
with  cubes. 

189 


THE  PRINCIPLES  OF  LANGUAGE-STUDY 

"  The  memorizing  of  the  multiplication  table  is  a 
wearisome  grind  ;  let  us  therefore  make  it  interesting 
by  teaching  in  its  place  the  theory  of  numeration !  " 
''  Practising  scales  on  the  piano  is  monotonous  and  in- 
artistic ;  let  us  therefore  abolish  such  finger-gymnastics 
and  replace  all  such  work  by  the  theory  of  harmony  ! " 
**  Learning  sentences  by  heart  and  performing  these  drills 
are  so  tedious  ;  let  us  therefore  reject  these  forms  of 
work,  and  replace  them  by  analysing  a  text  or  by  trying 
our  hand  at  literary  composition !  " 

Now,  as  we  have  seen  and  proved  to  our  satisfac- 
tion, language-learning  is  essentially  a  habit-forming 
process,  is  an  art  and  not  a  science,  and  if  we  insist  on 
considering  as  a  science  what  is  an  art  we  are  confusing 
the  issues  and  creating  a  breeding-ground  for  all  sorts 
of  fallacies.  Linguistics  is  a  science,  language-teaching 
is  largely  a  science,  but  the  practical  study  of  lan- 
guages is  not ;  let  us  remember  this  primordial  fact 
while  we  are  endeavouring  to  make  our  subjects 
interesting. 

What  are  the  chief  things  making  for  interest  ?  We 
suggest  six  rational  and  reasonable  factors  calculated 
to  produce  interest  if  not  enthusiasm  without  any 
detriment  to  any  of  the  eight  other  fundamental  prin- 
ciples, viz.  : 

(1)  The  elimination  of  bewilderment. 

(2)  The  sense  of  progress  achieved. 

(3)  Competition. 

(4)  Game-like  exercises. 

(5)  The  right  relation  between  teacher  and  student. 

(6)  Variety. 

(1)  The  Elimination  of  Bewilderment. — "  I  can't  make 
out  what  it's  all  about  !     What  on  earth  is  the  teacher 

140 


INTEREST 

driving  at  ?  I  don't  understand  these  new  terms  nor 
the  use  of  them.  What  is  it  all  for  ?  What  good  is  it 
going  to  do  me  ?     I  do  hate  this  lesson  I  " 

Have  you  ever  heard  comments  of  this  sort  ?  Have 
you  ever  made  them  yourself  ?  The  attitude  of  one 
making  such  comments  (either  openly  or  inwardly)  is  not 
a  hopeful  one  ;  it  gives  no  promise  of  successful  work  ; 
it  shows  that  interest  is  entirely  lacking.  What  is  the 
cause  of  this  attitude,  and  how  can  we  change  it  ?  Is  it 
because  the  subject  is  too  difficult  ?  No,  surely  not,  for 
some  of  the  most  difficult  subjects  may  be  most  fascin- 
ating, even  for  the  average  student ;  difficulty  often  adds 
to  the  attractiveness  of  work  and  may  even  induce 
interest.  Difficulty  is  not  necessarily  an  unfavourable 
factor.     But  bewilderment  invariably  is  ! 

There  is  an  immense  difference  between  difficult 
work  and  bewildering  work  ;  of  difficulties  there  must 
necessarily  be  many,  but  of  bewilderment  there  should 
be  none. 

New  methods  often  bewilder  those  who  have  become 
used  to  the  old  ones  ;  unfamiliar  grammatical  systems 
are  bewildering  to  those  who  think  that  one  system  of 
grammar  is  common  to  all  the  languages  of  the  world. 
It  is  disconcerting  to  face  the  fact  that  languages  have 
classical  and  colloquial  grammars  existing  side  by  side, 
which  grammars  are  mutually  exclusive  in  many  respects ; 
it  is  more  especially  bewildering  to  those  who  have  never 
made  any  study  of  colloquial  language.  Easy  things  and 
easy  systems  are  more  bewildering  than  difficult  ones  if 
one  has  already  become  more  or  less  familiar  with  the 
difficult  system.  To  those  who  have  wrestled  for  years 
with  difficult  and  tangled  orthographies  a  phonetic 
system  of  writing,  the  acme  of  ease  and  simplicity,  may 
appear  bewilderingly  difficult.     A  good  deal  of  bewilder- 

141 


THE   PRINCIPLES   OF  LANGUAGE- STUDY 

ment  may  be  ascribed  to  prejudice  or  to  preconceived 
notions  concerning  the  nature  of  language  ;  this  is  why 
(other  things  being  equal)  children  are  generally  less 
bewildered  than  adults  when  learning  how  to  use  the 
spoken  form  of  language  ;  they  have  fewer  prejudices  or 
even  none  at  all. 

There  are  two  ways  of  eliminating  bewilderment.  One 
is  to  give  in  the  clearest  possible  way  certain  fundamental 
explanations  whenever  there  appears  to  be  confusion  in 
the  mind  of  the  student ;  the  other  is  to  see  that  the  pro- 
gramme is  properly  graded.  Once  the  student  grasps  the 
scope  of  the  particular  problem  or  series  of  problems,  and 
once  the  programme  is  reasonably  well  graded,  there  will 
be  no  more  bewilderment  and  there  will  be  no  more 
puzzled  learners. 

We  might  perhaps  add  here  that  there  are  times, 
strangely  enough,  when  the  teacher  finds  it  necessary  to 
induce  a  temporary  bewilderment.  Categoric  and  un- 
conventional devices  have  occasionally  to  be  adopted 
in  order  to  break  certain  undesirable  associations ; 
*  mystery  words  '  and  '  mystery  sentences  '  often  play 
a  useful  part  in  destroying  false  associations  and  vicious 
linguistic  habits.  But  these  intentionally  created 
mysteries,  puzzling  for  the  time  being,  are  not  of  the 
same  order  as  those  hopeless  and  perpetual  mysteries 
which  are  the  cause  of  so  much  discouragement  and 
discomfiture. 

It  is  a  subject  of  debate  whether  we  ought  to  use 
explanations  at  all  for  the  purpose  of  teaching  anyone  to 
use  a  language.  Some  maintain  that  we  should  no  more 
explain  a  point  of  theory  to  a  schoolchild  or  an  adult  than 
we  should  to  a  child  of  eighteen  months.  The  young 
child,  it  is  said,  learns  to  speak  the  language  which  he 
hears  around  him  by  dint  of  sheer  imitation ;  he  learns 
142 


INTEREST 

no  theory  and  would  understand  no  explanations ;  why 
therefore  should  we  explain  at  all  ? 

We  would  suggest  that  the  chief  function  of  explana- 
tions is  to  prevent  bewilderment.  It  may  or  may  not  be 
useful  for  a  schoolchild  or  an  adult  to  know  why  certain 
things  are  so,  why  French  nouns  are  either  masculine  or 
feminine,  why  it  is  sometimes  avoir  and  sometimes  etre, 
why  we  do  not  say  in  English  he  comesn'U  why  we  do  not 
say  /  had  better  to  go,  and  w^hy  certain  French  con- 
junctions require  the  use  of  the  subjunctive.  Appro- 
priate explanations  may  induce  a  more  rapid  rate  of 
progress  or  they  may  not  (probably  in  the  long  run 
generally  not),  but  they  certainly  do  have  the  effect  of 
satisfying  that  instinctive  curiosity  which,  if  unappeased, 
will  induce  bewilderment  and  so  cause  the  student  to  lose 
interest. 

We  might  add  (although  this  is  not  pertinent  to  the 
subject  under  discussion)  that  in  the  case  of  a  '  corrective 
course  '  simple  and  rational  explanations  should  form  an 
essential  part  of  the  treatment. 

With  regard  to  the  second  manner  of  eliminating  the 
factor  of  bewilderment,  viz.  the  proper  grading  of  the 
course,  we  would  refer  the  reader  to  the  chapter  dealing 
specifically  with  this  subject. 

(2)  The  Sense  of  Progress  Achieved. — All  work  becomes 
more  interesting  when  we  are  conscious  that  we  have 
made  and  are  making  progress  in  that  work.  That  sense 
of  discouragement  which  is  so  inimical  to  interest  arises 
when,  in  spite  of  our  efforts,  we  seem  to  be  no  nearer  to 
our  goal.  Statistics  compiled  by  those  who  have  made  a 
special  study  of  the  psychology  of  learning  show  us  that 
periods  frequently  occur  in  which  there  is  no  apparent 
progress  and  during  which,  as  a  necessary  consequence, 
the  interest  of  the  student  diminishes.     It  is  generally 

14S 


THE  PRINCIPLES   OF  LANGUAGE-STUDY 

during  such  periods  (technically  called  plateaux)  that  the 
adult  student  gives  up  his  study  as  a  bad  job  and  retires 
from  the  contest. 

The  cause  of  such  plateaux  would  appear  to  be  a  de- 
fective system  of  gradation ;  the  student  has  over- 
reached himself  and  has  temporarily  absorbed  more 
material  than  he  can  retain  permanently  ;  he  has  worked 
too  fast  for  his  habit-forming  capacities  and  has  to  mark 
time  until  the  previously  acquired  material  has  been 
properly  assimilated. 

Novelty  always  gives  a  certain  amount  of  interest 
to  a  new  subject,  and  during  the  first  period  students 
often  gain  the  idea  that  they  are  making  more 
progress  than  is  warranted  by  the  facts  ;  when  the 
novelty  wears  off  the  reaction  occurs,  and  a  period  of 
depression  follows. 

In  order,  therefore,  to  make  it  possible  for  the  student 
always  to  feel  he  is  making  progress,  and  thus  to  main- 
tain interest  and  zest,  it  is  necessary  to  see  that  the 
course  is  properly  graded,  that  the  repetitions  are  kept 
up  regularly  and  systematically,  and  that  the  rate  of 
progression  is  consistently  increased. 

(3)  Competition. — The  spirit  of  emulation  gives  zest  to 
a  study.  The  fear  of  being  outdistanced  by  one's  fellow- 
students  or  rivals,  the  satisfaction  of  gaining  ground  on 
them,  and  the  hope  of  becoming  or  remaining  the  best 
student  in  the  class  is  a  stimulus  not  to  be  despised.  This 
is  really  one  of  the  chief  raisons  d'etre  for  examinations, 
tests,  and  registers  of  progress. 

(4)  Game-like  Exercises. — In  the  case  of  young  students 
a  considerable  amount  of  interest  can  be  induced  by 
making  certain  forms  of  exercise  so  resemble  games  that 
the  pupils  do  not  quite  know  whether  they  are  playing 
or  working.     Games  of  skill  such  as  chess  are  almost 

144 


INTEREST 

indistinguishable  from  many  subjects  of  scholastic  study, 
and  many  types  of  puzzles  and  problem-games  are  prac- 
tically identical  with  mathematical  problems.  The  only 
danger  here  is  that  language-games  may  not  further  the 
student  sufficiently  in  the  habit-forming  process  ;  some 
types  certainly  will  not ;  indeed,  we  can  imagine  types 
of  exercise-games  which  would  tend  to  inhibit  it.  If, 
however,  the  necessity  for  habit-forming  is  constantly 
present  to  the  teacher's  mind,  it  is  permissible  to  intro- 
duce at  appropriate  moments  forms  of  exercise  such  as 
'  action  drill,'  '  living  grammar,'  or  '  sorting  exercises,' 
possessing  real  educative  value  and  an  interest -giving 
value  at  the  same  time. 

(5)  The  Relation  between  Teacher  and  Student. — "  No, 
I  don't  take  French  lessons  now.  M.  Untel  used  to  be 
my  teacher,  but  he  went  away,  and  I  didn't  much  like  the 
man  who  took  his  place,  and  so  I  lost  interest  and  stopped. 
The  new  man  was  all  right  in  his  way,  but  it  wasn't  at  all 
the  same  thing  as  with  M.  Untel ;  he  didn't  have  the  same 
way  of  giving  the  lessons,  and  somehow  or  other  I  didn't 
seem  to  get  on  with  him." 

"  I  like  the  French  lesson  ;  M.  Untel  niakes  it  so  inter- 
esting ;  he's  got  a  nice  way  of  explaining  things,  and  we 
are  never  afraid  of  asking  him  questions.  He  doesn't 
laugh  at  you  if  you  say  something  that  sounds  silly  ;  he 
understands  what  you're  trying  to  drive  at,  and  always 
knows  what  the  trouble  is.  I  didn't  use  to  like  French 
lessons  at  all.  We  had  another  master  then  ;  he  always 
seemed  to  be  telling  you  things  that  you  didn't  feel  you 
wanted  to  know,  and  yet  when  you  did  want  to  know 
something  he  never  understood  what  it  was  you  wanted 
to  know." 

These  expressions  of  opinion  (written  in  colloquial 
English)  give  us  a  good  idea  of  why  two  students  (one  an 

10  145 


THE   PRINCIPLES   OF  LANGUAGE- STUDY 

adult  and  the  other  a  schoolchild)  are  interested  in 
learning  French  when  M.  Untel  gives  the  lesson. 

(6)  Variety. — A  monotonous  type  of  drill-work  is  per- 
formed during  an  entire  lesson.  In  the  next  lesson  a 
second  and  different  type  of  monotonous  drill-work  is 
performed.  The  third  lesson  is  devoted  to  a  third  type 
of  drill-work.  A  fourth  lesson  consists  of  sixty  minutes  of 
another  sort  of  grind.  A  fifth  and  a  sixth  lesson  are 
similarly  devoted  to  two  other  sorts  of  mechanical  work. 
The  net  result  is  six  dull  and  monotonous  lessons. 

Another  case.  Six  lessons  are  given.  Each  lesson  is 
divided  into  six  periods  of  ten  minutes.  Each  period  is 
devoted  to  a  different  type  of  mechanical  work  or  drill- 
work.  The  net  result  is  six  moderately  interesting 
lessons. 

Not  that  any  lesson  should  consist  exclusively  of  drill- 
work  or  mechanical  work  ;  there  is  a  place  in  every 
lesson  for  listening  to  the  living  language  in  actual  use  ; 
there  is  a  place  in  every  lesson  for  interesting  explana- 
tions and  for  the  factor  of  human  interest,  for  the  use  of 
devices  which  usually  engage  the  keenest  attention  of 
the  students.  If,  however,  there  are  forms  of  work 
which  generally  appear  less  popular  or  less  vivacious,  if 
the  repeating  of  word-lists  and  the  reciting  of  groups  of 
sentences  do  tend  towards  dullness,  then  we  can  com- 
pensate for  this  temporary  lack  of  vivacity  by  intro- 
ducing an  extra  dose  of  variety. 

A  change  of  work  is  in  itself  a  factor  of  interest  even  if 
the  work  should  not  be  particularly  interesting  ;  variety 
will  relieve  any  tedium  which  may  possibly  he  associated 
with  mechanical  work.  Let  us  suppose  that  on  one  or  ^ 
more  occasions  we  do  find  it  necessary  for  some  par- 
ticular purpose  to  introduce  an  unpopular  form  of 
exercise ;   we  can  sandwich  that  exercise  between  two 

146 


INTEREST 

popular  forms  of  work,  and  the  evil  ten  minutes  will  pass 
unnoticed. 

This  point  will  be  treated  incidentally  when  we  come 
to  examine  principle  9  (the  multiple  line  of  approach)  ; 
we  shall  see  what  bearing  this  theory  has  on  the  ques- 
tion of  variety  and  the  interest  engendered  thereby. 


147 


CHAPTER  XIV 
A  RATIONAL  ORDER  OF  PROGRESSION 

ONE  of  the  greatest  differences  between  the  old- 
fashioned  manner  of  teaching  languages  and  the 
new  manner  towards  which  we  are  feeling  our 
way  is  a  difference  in  what  we  call '  order  of  progression.' 
This  term  and  the  principle  which  is  involved  therein 
cannot,  at  the  present  stage  of  our  knowledge,  be  defined 
in  very  categoric  terms  ;  its  connotation  is  somewhat 
loose,  for  it  may  be  applied  to  the  general  programme 
of  study  and  also  to  any  particular  item  of  study.  In 
some  ways  the  principle  seems  to  have  a  close  connexion 
with  gradation,  and  yet  on  the  whole  it  appears  to  cover 
other  ground,  for  we  can  imagine  entirely  differc'nt 
orders  of  progression,  and  each  may  be  well  or  badly 
graded. 

Under  this  particular  heading  we  have  to  consider 
the  order  in  which  the  various  aspects  and  branches  of  a 
language  may  be  dealt  with.  We  may  conceivably  work 
from  the  written  to  the  spoken  or  vice  versa  ;  we  may 
start  with  systematic  ear-training  and  articulation 
exercises  or  leave  these  to  a  later  stage  ;  we  may  advise 
or  we  may  reject  the  use  of  a  phonetic  alphabet ;  we  may 
teach  or  we  may  leave  intonation  ;  we  may  proceed  from 
the  word  towards  the  sentence  or  we  may  take  the  sen- 
tence as  our  starting-point ;  we  may  exclude  irregular- 
ities during  the  early  stages  or  we  may  include  them  ;  we 
may  insist  on  a  slow  and  distinct  pronunciation  at  the 

148 


A   RATIONAL   ORDER   OF   PROGRESSION 

outset  and  leave  abbreviations  and  shortened  forms  to  a 
later  stage.  In  all  these  matters,  and  in  other  cases 
as  well,  we  have  to  consider  very  seriously  two  alter- 
natives ;  we  have  to  weigh  the  respective  advantages 
and  disadvantages,  remembering  always  that  our  object 
is  to  secure  rapid  but  permanent  progress.  Each  of  the 
pairs  of  alternatives  enumerated  above  has  been  and  .still 
is  the  subject  of  discussion  and  controversy  ;  there  is 
much  to  be  said  on  both  sides,  and  an  argument  in 
fevour  of  the  one  side  may  seem  conclusive — until  we 
have  heard  the  argument  for  the  other.  Let  us  examine 
each  of  the  points  we  have  mentioned  and  place  the 
opposing  views  in  parallel  columns  ;  for  the  sake  of 
convenience  we  will  in  each  case  place  the  arguments  of 
the  older  school  on  the  left-hand  side  and  the  modern 
answer  on  the  right. 

Written  or  spoken  first  ? 

The  most  stable  form  The  only  true  form  of  speech  is 

of     speech     is     written  spoken  speech ;  it  constitutes  the 

speech  ;  it  does  not  vary  living  language  itself.     All  lan- 

from  one  person  to  an-  guages  were  spoken  long  before 

other  or  from  one  region  they  were  written.  Orthographies 

to  another  as  spoken  Ian-  are  comparatively  recent  inven- 

guage  always  does.     In  tions,  and  have  no  more  claim  to 

the  written  form  we  find  being    the    essence    of   language 

the  essence  of  a  language  than  shorthand, 

and    its    treasure-house.  The  written  aspect  of  language 

Sppken    language    is    a  is  artificial ;    the  spoken  aspect 

faint      and      attenuated  alone    is    pursuing    the    normal 

counterpart,       generally  course   of  evolution,   and   is   al- 

more  or  less  debased  and  ways  freeing  itself  from  archaic 

altered  by  slang,  dialect,  and  useless  encumbrances.     The 

and    slovenly    habits   of  spoken     language    is     a     token 

utterance.  of  life,   for  dead  languages  are 

those  which  exist  but  in  written 

form. 

149 


THE  PRINCIPLES   OF  LANGUAGE-STUDY 


An  unwritten  language 
is  almost  a  contradiction 
in  terms,  for  a  language 
without  a  literature  is 
but  a  barbarous  jargon, 
primitive  in  its  structure, 
weak  in  vocabulary  and 
in  means  of  expression. 


When  a  child  goes  to 
school,  he  starts  learning 
his  language  on  its  writ- 
ten basis.  He  starts  at 
the  ABC. 


Grammar   only   exists 
in  written  language. 


It  is  easier  to  learn 
a  written  word  than  a 
iipoken  word,  for  the 
written  word  remains 
before  the  eyes,  whereas 
the  spoken  word  is  in- 
tangible and  evanescent. 

It  is  easy  to  convert 
eye-knowledge  into  ear- 
knowledge.  Once  we 
know  how  a  word  is 
written  we  easily  learn 
how  to  pronounce  it. 


150 


The  facts  are  all  wrong.  Most, 
if  not  all,  unwritten  languages 
so  far  investigated  prove  to  be 
of  a  remarkable  richness.  The 
Bantu  group,  to  quote  one  ex- 
ample, has  an  inflexional  system 
rivalling  and  excelling  those  of 
Latin  and  Greek,  and  possesses 
wonderfully  rich  syntactical  and 
semantic  systems. 

In  the  meantime  he  has  already 
become  an  expert  user  of  the 
spoken  language,  including  the 
complete  phonetic  system  un- 
considered in  written  speech  and 
a  most  complex  and  beautiful 
system  of  intonation  unknown 
to  orthographies. 

If  the  grammar  of  the  written 
language  only  exists  in  the  written 
language,  the  grammar  of  the 
spoken  language  only  exists  in 
the  spoken  language. 

Consequently  if  we  learn  the 
written  word  we  are  unable  to 
understand  what  is  said  to  us 
and  to  express  ourselves  orally. 


The  facts  are  all  wrong  again. 
The  most  difficult  thing  in  lan- 
guage-study is  to  convert  eye- 
knowledge  into  ear-knowledge. 
Once  we  know  how  a  word  is 
pronounced  we  can  recognize  and 
reproduce  its  written  form  with 
the  greatest  ease. 


A  RATIONAL   ORDER  OF  PROGRESSION 


Shall  we  start  with  systematic  ear-training  and  articula- 
tion exercises  ? 


No.  Both  are  of 
doubtful  value  under  the 
best  of  conditions.  The 
majority  of  students 
manage  eventually  to 
understand  and  to  make 
themselves  understood 
without  such  adventi- 
tious and  fanciful  aids. 

The  young  child  does 
not  have  to  undergo  such 
processes  when  learning 
his  native  tongue,  and 
yet  he  succeeds  in  hear- 
ing and  in  articulating 
correctly. 


Such  exercises  are  ex- 
tremely mokotonous  and 
dull ;  they  are  likely  to 
kill  interest  and  to  cause 
the  students  to  dislike 
the  whole  process  of  lan- 
guage-learning. 

Few  language-teachers 
know  how  to  make  the 
foreign  sounds  correctly, 
and  therefore  few  can 
give  such  exercises  with- 
out causing  the  students 
to  acquire  bad  habits. 

It  is  useless  to  attempt 
to  teach  systematically 
the  sounds  of  the  lan- 
guage, seeing  that  these 


Certainly.  Unless  the  teach- 
ing rests  on  this  foundation  all 
the  subsequent  work  will  be  dis- 
torted and  false. 


The  young  child  at  the  cradle 
age  does  *  little  else  than  go 
through  a  course  of  such  exer- 
cises. He  listens  and  imitates, 
at  first  imperfectly,  but  later 
with  great  expertness,  recogniz- 
ing and  reproducing  isolated 
sounds  and  complex  combinations 
of  these. 

Such  exercises  are  always  found 
extremely  interesting,  and  tend 
to  constitute  an  additional  at- 
traction to  the  study  of  the 
language. 


No  teacher  should  be  allowed 
to  do  language-work  who  is  not 
proficient  in  the  sounds  of  the 
foreign  language,  for  those  who 
are  incapable  of  making  the 
sounds  cannot  be  good  language- 
teachers. 

Any  form  of  normal  speech 
will  serve  as  a  model,  provided 
that  the  speech  is  that  of  educated 
natives.     In  the  absence  of  any 

151 


THE   PRINCIPLES   OF  LANGUAGE-STUDY 


vary  from  one  region  to 
another  and  from  one 
person  to  another. 


model  at  all,  the  student  will 
speak  the  foreign  language  with 
the  sounds  of  his  mother-tongue ! 


Shall  we  admit  or  reject  the  use  of  phonetic  transcription  ? 

Reject  it  certainly,  for         Accept  it  certainly  for  various 
various  reasons.  reasons. 


It  is  extremely  diffi- 
cult ;  those  who  have 
been  learning  languages 
for  years,  even  languages 
with  strange  alphabets, 
find  phonetic  symbols  so 
puzzling  that  they  are 
forced  to  discontinue 
their  efforts. 

It  would  take  weeks  or 
even  months  to  learn  the 
strange  and  unnatural 
symbols. 


The  whole  proceeding 
is  an  unnatural  one,  con- 
trary to  all  the  laws  of 
language. 


It  is  trying  to  the  eyes. 


It  is  a  waste  of  valu- 
able time  to  learn  an 
artificial  alphabet. 

152 


It  is  extremely  easy  ;  young 
children  learn  to  use  it  readily 
and  accurately.  Those  who  ex- 
perience any  difficulty  are  those 
who  are  unable  or  unwilling  to 
forhi  new  habits.  A  language  is 
such  a  difficult  thing  that  we 
must  utilize  every  means  of  mak- 
ing our  work  easier. 

The  half  a  dozen  strange  sym- 
bols usually  required  in  addition 
to  those  of  the  ordinary  alphabet 
can  usually  be  learnt  at  sight 
without  any  special  practice. 
Even  a  strange  *  orthographic 
alphabet '  such  as  the  Russian  one 
can  be  mastered  in  a  few  days. 

All  writing  is  an  unnatural 
process  in  the  sense  that  it  is  not 
performed  by  instinct,  but  has  to 
be  learnt  as  an  art.  Of  all  systems 
of  writing,  however,  the  phonetic 
system  is  the  one  most  in  accord- 
ance with  logic  and  natural  law. 

Most  phonetic  alphabets  are 
clearer  than  those  used  in  German 
and  Russian,  for  instance. 

The  learning  of  a  perfectly 
natural  alphabet  is  in  itself  of 
educative  value ;  it  inculcates 
the  idea  of  phonetic  writing  and 


A  RATIONAL   ORDER   OF  PROGRESSION 


It  is  evident  that  tlie 
use  of  a  phonetic  alpha- 
bet will  make  havoc  of 
the  ordinary  spelling  to 
be  learnt  subsequently. 


To  learn  phonetic  writ- 
ing means  learning  two 
languages  instead  of  one. 


Phonetic  texts  always 
give  slovenly  and  in- 
correct manners  of  pro- 
nouncing words. 


serves  once  for  all  as  an  essential 
preparation  for  the  study  of  any 
number  of  foreign  languages. 

It  has  been  ascertained  experi- 
mentally that  those  who  have 
been  taught  to  read  and  to  write 
a  language  phonetically  become 
quite  as  efficient  spellers  as  those 
not  so  trained.  In  many  cases 
the  phonetically  trained  student 
becomes  the  better  speller. 

In  all  cases  where  the  tradi- 
tional orthography  is  not  in 
agreement  with  the  native  pro- 
nunciation the  student  is  neces- 
sarily forced  to  learn  the  two 
things.  The  use  of  a  phonetic 
alphabet  is  the  only  way  to  per- 
form this  double  work  rapidly, 
rationally,  and  with  the  minimum 
of  confusion. 

Authors  of  phonetic  texts  al- 
ways strive  to  give  an  accurate 
rendering  of  the  language  as 
really  and  effectively  spoken  by 
educated  natives ;  they  rarely 
attempt  to  teach  forms  that  have 
no  existence  in  the  language  as 
actually  used  in  ordinary  speech. 


Should  we  teach  intonation  in  the  early  stages  ? 


No.  It  is  a  fancy 
subject  of  little  or  no 
importance  and  certainly 
forms  no  integral  part 
of  language-study. 


Yes.  It  is  a  subject  of  great 
importance  and  forms  an  integral 
part  of  language-study.  In  many 
languages  speech  without  the 
correct  tones  is  only  half  in- 
telligible ;  in  Chinese  and  other 
languages  it  is  perfectly  un- 
intelligible. 

153 


THE   PRINCIPLES   OF  LANGUAGE-STUDY 


In  any  case  it  can  be 
left  to  the  very  final 
stage  of  the  programme. 


If  it  is  not  taught  in  the  very 
earliest  stage  correct  intonation 
will  be  very  difficult  to  acquire. 
Language- study  is  a  habit-form- 
ing process,  and  the  habit  of 
speaking  with  wrong  tones  is  a 
bad  habit. 


Word  or  sentence  first  ? 

The  word  is  the  unit 
of  language. 

Words  are  definite  en- 
tities and  constitute  the 
component  parts  of  sen- 
tences. 


The  word,  not  the  sen- 
tence, is  the  basis  of 
translation.  Since  a  word 
has  a  definite  meaning 
and  conveys  a  definite 
idea  it  is  easy  to  find 
the  foreign  equivalent. 

It  is  easy  to  memorize 
words  and  difficult  to 
memorize  sentences. 

We  speak  in  words. 


If  we  learn  a  few 
dozen  words  we  can  build 
up  thousands  of  sen- 
tences from  these  by  the 
synthetic  process. 


154 


Whatever  the  unit  of  language 
is,  it  is  not  the  word. 

Sentences  may  be  reduced  to 
component  parts ;  sometimes 
these  are  words,  but  quite  as 
often  they  are  word-groups  (such 
as  compounds  and  phrases)  or 
units  less  than  words  (such  as 
affixes). 

A  sentence  has  generally,  if 
not  always,  a  definite  foreign 
equivalent.  A  word  is  so  un- 
stable that  it  may  entirely  change 
its  meaning  when  used  with  other 
words. 


It  is  as  easy  to  memorize  a  six- 
word  sentence  as  six  words. 


We  express  our  thoughts  in 
sentences. 

If  we  learn  a  few  dozen  sen- 
tences we  can  construct  thousands 
of  others  from  these  by  dis- 
integration and  substitution,  and, 
what  is  more,  we  can  recognize 
them  and  use  them  even  in  rapid 
speech. 


A   RATIONAL   ORDER   OF   PROGRESSION 


Words  are  the  basis  of 
grammar. 

The  collection  of  word- 
families  is  a  valuable 
way  of  enriching  one's 
vocabulary. 


Words  constitute  the 
*  primary  matter  '  (i.e. 
matter  to  be  memorized 
integrally  without  analy- 
sis or  synthesis).  Sen- 
tences constitute  the 
'  secondary  matter  '  (i.e 
matter  to  be  derived 
synthetically  from  pri- 
mary matter). 

Take  care  of  the  words 
and  the  sentences  will 
take  care  of  themselves. 


Sentences  are  the  basis  of 
syntax. 

The  enriching  of  one's  voca- 
bulary should  be  left  to  a  com- 
paratively late  stage  in  the  study 
of  language,  especially  in  the 
study  of  most  derivatives  and 
compounds. 

It  is  precisely  because  sen- 
tences are  so  rarely  considered  as 
'  memorized  matter  '  that  so  few 
people  manage  to  understand  the 
foreign  language  when  spoken  or 
to  express  themselves  correctly 
in  it. 


Take  care  of  the  sentences  and 
the  words  will  take  care  of  them- 
selves. 


Should  irregularities  be  included  or  excluded  during  the 
earlier  stages  ? 


The  regular  is  easy,  the 
irregular  is  difficult ;  in 
the  interest  of  gradation 
let  us  therefore  exclude 
temporarily  the  irregular. 

Irregular  forms  make 
it  difficult  to  formulate 
precise  rules. 

The  normal  and  logical 
should  precede  the  ab- 
normal and  illogical. 


Irregular  forms  are  generally 
more  used  and  more  useful  than 
regular  ones  ;  in  the  interest  of 
gradation  let  us  therefore  include 
all  necessary  irregularities  even 
in  the  earlier  stages. 

Rules  with  numerous  excep- 
tions are  not  worth  formulating 
at  all. 

Then,  as  natural  languages  are 
full  of  abnormalities  and  bad  logic, 
let  the  student  start  with  an 
artificial  language ! 

155 


THE   PRINCIPLES   OF  LANGUAGE-STUDY 


hnmediate  fluency  or  gradual  fluency  ? 


It  is  easy  to  pronounce 
a  sentence  slowly  and 
distinctly ;  difficult  to 
pronounce  it  rapidly  and 
fluently. 


It  is  more  correct  to 
articulate  clearly  and  de- 
liberately. 


*  Shortened  forms,' 
such  as  don't  or  Fm, 
should  never  be  taught. 
The  student,  alas  !  will 
only  too  soon  pick  up 
these  undesirable  vulgar- 
isms. Don't  hasten  the 
process. 

It  is  always  easy,  too 
easy,  to  transform  clear 
and  incisive  speech  into 
a  blurred  and  slovenly 
style  of  speaking. 


A  vowel  or  even  a 
consonant  may  perhaps 
disappear  when  we  are 

156 


It  is  just  as  easy  to  pronounce 
a  sentence  rapidly  and  fluently 
as  to  pronounce  it  slowly  ;  it  is 
even  easier  in  some  cases.  The 
converse  is  only  true  when  we 
are  constructing  our  sentences 
synthetically,  word  by  word,  but 
this  is  not  a  sound  process. 

To  articulate  more  clearly  and 
deliberately  than  the  average 
educated  native  is  a  mark  of 
inaccuracy,  for,  as  Dr  Cummings 
says,  "  fluency  is  an  integral 
part  of  accuracy." 

All  '  shortened  forms  '  which 
are  invariably  used  in  normal 
speech  by  educated  natives  {e.g. 
don't,  Fm)  should  be  taught  to 
the  exclusion  of  the  longer  form. 
The  student,  alas  !  will  only  too 
soon  acquire  the  habit  of  using 
pedanticisms.  Let  us  not  hasten 
the  process. 

It  is  almost  impossible,  in  the 
case  of  foreign  students,  to  con- 
vert an  over-distinct  and  halting 
speech  into  a  smooth,  harmonious 
style  of  utterance  with  the  proper 
cadence  and  rhythm.  It  is  for 
this  reason  that  when  a  foreigner 
wishes  to  say  Sunday,  two  to  two, 
or  four  for  four,  we  so  frequently 
understand  some  day,  2,  2,  2,  or 
4,  4,  4. 

The  maintenance  of  such  syl- 
lables in  ordinary  rapid  speech 
is  one  of  the  characteristics  of 


A  RATIONAL   ORDER  OF  PROGRESSION 


speaking  very  rapidly  or 
very  carelessly.  When, 
however,  we  are  deliber- 
ately teaching  a  word, 
we  should  give  the  most 
perfect  model  and  em- 
ploy the  most  sonorous 
forms. 


Conclusion 

On  the  basis  of  the 
foregoing  considerations, 
we  conclude  that  it  is 
desirable,  if  not  essen- 
tial: 

(a)  To  learn  to  read 
and  to  write  before  learn- 
ing to  speak  and  to 
understand  what  is  said. 

(b)  To  avoid  system- 
atic ear  -  training  and 
articulation  exercises,  at 
any  rate  in  the  early 
stages. 

(c)  To  reject  the  use 
of  phonetic  transcription. 

(d)  To  leave  to  a  very 
late  stage  or  to  omit 
altogether  the  study  of 
intonation. 

(e)  To  memorize  words 
and  to  learn  to  inflect 
them,  before  memorizing 
and  learning  how  to  con- 
struct sentences. 


pidgin  or  foreigner's  speech.  It 
is  not  yet  sufficiently  realized 
that  the  use  of  certain  sounds  is 
only  correct  in  slow  speech  or  in 
isolated  words.  If  '  stayshun  ' 
is  a  more  sonorous  and  correct 
rendering  of  s-t-a-t-i-o-n  than 
'stayshn,'  then  '  stayshon  '  is 
still  better,  and  *  stay-si-on  '  or 
'  stay-ti-on  '  better  still. 


On  the  basis  of  the  foregoing 
considerations,  we  conclude  that 
it  is  desirable,  if  not  essential : 


{a)  To  learn  to  speak  and  to 
understand  what  is  said  before 
learning  to  read  and  to  write. 

(b)  To  start  a  language-course 
with  systematic  ear-training  and 
articulation  exercises. 


(c)  To  make  a  most  extensive 
use  of  the  phonetic  transcription, 
especially  in  the  early  stages. 

{d)  To  teach  intonation  at  a 
very  early  stage. 


(e)  To  memorize  sentences  and 
to  learn  how  to  construct  them, 
before  memorizing  words  and 
learning  how  to  build  either  in- 
flected forms  or  derivatives. 

157 


h 


THE   PRINCIPLES   OF  LANGUAGE- STUDY 

(/)  To  avoid  irregular  (/)  To  include  irregular  and 
and  idiomatic  forms  in  idiomatic  forms  even  in  the  earlier 
the  earlier  stages.  stages. 

(g)  To  pronounce  very  (g)  To  teach  from  the  outset  a 
slowly  and  distinctly,  rapid  and  fluent  style  of  pro- 
leaving  fluency  to  a  later  nunciation,  reserving  more  dis- 
stage.  tinct  utterance  to  a  later  stage. 

All  our  experience  leads  us  to  endorse  most  emphati- 
cally all  the  statements  made  in  the  right-hand  column. 

Numbers  of  those  who  were  formerly  of  the  opinion 
expressed  in  the  left-hand  column  have  become  and  are 
becoming  converted  to  the  opposite  view  ;  the  contrary 
case  is  practically  unknown.  The  modernists  are  not 
arguing  in  the  dark  ;  they  have  their  data  and  their 
evidence,  and  are  perfectly  well  acquainted  with  the 
arguments  of  the  ancients,  whereas  few  of  those  pro- 
fessing the  older  views  have  ever  even  heard  of  the 
modernists'  case,  still  less  given  it  any  reasonable  amount 
of  consideration. 

We  should  note  that  the  protagonists  of  each  of  the 
two  schools  are  not  invariably  as  sharply  and  as  con- 
sistently divided  as  in  the  foregoing  comparison.  It  is 
only  natural  that  we  should  find  individuals  taking  the 
modern  view  in  the  case  of  certain  of  the  points  quoted, 
and  the  ancient  view  in  the  other  cases. 

An  enthusiastic  adherent  of  the  phonetic  theory  will 
not  necessarily  endorse  the  view  that  rapid  and  fluent 
speech  should  precede  slow  and  distinct  speech.  One 
may  believe  in  teaching  sentences  before  words  and  yet 
be  unconvinced  as  to  the  necessity  for  phonetics  and  all 
that  that  implies.  Some  may  favour  the  memorizing  of 
sentences  at  an  early  stage,  but  will  not  agree  that  the 
colloquial  language  should  be  given  a  more  favoured  place 
than  the  classical. 

158 


A   RATIONAL   ORDER  OF  PROGRESSION 

The  two  schools,  however,  do  appear  to  be  fairly  well 
defined,  for  in  the  majority  of  cases  it  will  most  probably 
be  found  that  those  who  favour  the  ancient  view  in  any 
one  respect  will  generally  favour  the  whole  of  the  ancient 
programme  and  regard  with  distrust  and  misgivings  the 
order  of  progression  generally  recommended  by  the 
modernists. 

Let  us  sum  up,  and  set  forth  in  parallel  columns  the  two 
most  widely  differing  orders  of  progression  in  order  that  we 
may  fully  realize  that  each  is  the  antithesis  of  the  other. 


/ 


The  Ancient  Order 
{based  on  tradition) 

First,  learn  how  to 
convert  '  dictionary  - 
words  '  (i.e.  etymons) 
into  '  working  sentence- 
units  '  {i.e.  ergons).  This 
will  be  done  by  memoriz- 
ing the  rules  of  accidence 
and  derivation. 

Secondly,  learn  the 
general  structure  of  sen- 
tences. This  will  be  done 
chiefly  by  reading  and 
translation  exercises. 


Thirdly,  memorize  the 
irregular  or  idiomatic 
phenomena  of  the  lan- 
guage. 


Lastly,    (if 
convert  the 


necessary) 
eye-know- 


The  Modern  Order 

{based  on  psychology) 


First,     become 
recognizing    and 


proficient    in 
in    producing 
foreign   sounds  and  tones,  both 
isolated  and  in  combinations. 


Secondly,  memorize  (without 
analysis  or  synthesis)  a  large 
number  of  complete  sentences 
chosen  specifically  for  this  pur- 
pose by  the  teacher  *or  by  the 
composer  of  the  course. 

Thirdly,  learn  to  build  up  all 
types  of  sentences  (both  regular 
and  irregular)  from  '  working 
sentence  -  units  '  (i.e.  ergons) 
chosen  specifically  for  this  pur- 
pose by  the  teacher  or  by  the 
composer  of  the  course. 

Lastly,  learn  how  to  convert 
*  dictionary  words  '  (i,e.  etymons) 

159 


THE  PRINCIPLES   OF  LANGUAGE-STUDY 

ledge  '   of  the   language     into     '  working     sentence-units  ' 
into  *  ear-knowledge  '  by     (i.e.  ergons), 
means  of  reading  aloud 
and    by    '  conversation- 
lessons.' 

An  irrational  order  of  progression  is  bound  to  entail 
much  '  cramming,'  a  process  by  which  much  information 
(valuable  or  valueless)  is  retained  for  a  short  time 
(generally  for  examination  purposes),  but  without  en- 
suring any  permanent  results  except  bad  results. 

A  rational  order  of  progression  will  not  only  rapidly 
secure  useful  and  desirable  results,  but  wdll  also  encourage 
the  formation  of  the  right  sort  of  language-habits  and 
ensure  as  a  permanent  result  the  capacity  for  using  the 
foreign  language  in  the  fullest  sense  of  the  term. 


160 


CHAPTER  XV 
THE  MULTIPLE  LINE  OF  APPROACH 

THE  ninth  and  last  of  the  essential  principles  is,  in 
reality,  more  than  a  mere  principle  of  language- 
study,  it  is  even  more  than  a  principle  of  study,  it 
is  almost  a  philosophy  in  itself.  It  seems  to  be  a  special 
application  of  a  doctrine  which,  to  many,  constitutes  a 
line  of  conduct,  an  attitude,  towards  most  of  the  pro- 
blems and  interests  of  our  daily  existence.  This  attitude 
is  fairly  well  designated  by  the  term  eclectic  ;  this,  how- 
ever, is  not  an  ideal  term,  seeing  that,  like  so  many  others, 
it  possesses  a  double  connotation.  Its  first  sense  is  dis- 
tinctly pejorative  ;  it  suggests  unoriginality,  a  lack  of 
coherent  system,  a  patchwork  of  other  people's  opinions. 
In  its  second  and  broader  sense,  so  far  from  being  a  term 
of  disparagement  or  reproach  it  implies  the  deliberate 
choice  of  all  things  which  are  good,  a  judicious  and 
reasoned  selection  of  all  the  diverse  factors  the  sum  of 
which  may  constitute  a  complete  and  homogeneous 
system.  If,  therefore,  we  speak  here  of  the  doctrine  or 
attitude  of  eclecticism,  we  are  obviously  using  the  term 
in  its  second  and  broader  connotation  ;  used  in  this  way 
it  stands  as  the  antithesis  of  prejudice,  of  faddiness,  of 
crankiness,  and  of  fixed  ideas.  Many  of  those  who 
practise  eclecticism  call  it  the  '  philosophy  of  the  com- 
plete hfe  '  ;  whether  this  is  or  is  not  a  philosophy  in  the 
true  sense  of  the  term,  we  will  leave  to  philosophers  to 
discuss ;  we  will  content  ourselves  by  quoting  a  few 
11  161 


THE  PRINCIPLES   OF  LANGUAGE-STUDY 

maxims  or  aphorisms  which  will  serve  to  make  clear  the 
attitude  in  question. 

All  is  good  which  tends  towards  good. 

The  recognition  and  appreciation  of  any  particular 
good  thing  does  not  necessarily  invalidate  those  things 
which  do  not  resemble  it,  nor  even  cause  us  to  dis- 
parage or  deprecate  things  which  are  seemingly  in 
conflict  with  it. 

Let  us  neglect  nothing  except  futilities  and  things 
which  we  have  proved  to  our  satisfaction  to  be  in  them- 
selves bad  and  harmful. 

Two  or  more  opposing  principles,  ideas,  likes,  opera- 
tions, interests,  in  short  any  two  or  more  conflicting 
tendencies,  may  be  combined,  and  this  combination 
can  be  effected  by  other  means  than  the  expedient  of 
compromising.  Lobster  salad  and  fruit  salad  may  be 
attractive  to  the  gourmet,  but  no  compromise  between 
the  two  would  be  palatable. 

It  is  not  always  the  height  of  wisdom  and  expediency 
to  kill  too  many  birds  with  one  stone. 

This  attitude  towards  life  in  general  does  indeed  solve 
many  problems  and  vexed  questions.  It  constitutes  a 
method  of  conciliating  inconsistencies,  both  real  and 
apparent.  It  explains  how  it  is  that  one  can  appreciate 
both  classical  and  popular  music,  classical  and  light 
literature,  how  idealism  may  exist  side  by  side  with  a 
keen  interest  in  material  things.  The  real  and  the  ideal, 
scientific  precision  and  unscientific  emotion,  patriotism 
and  internationalism,  are  not  incompatible  with  each 
other  in  the  '  philosophy  of  the  complete  life.' 

And  what  has  all  this  to  do  with  language-study  ? 
What  bearing  have  these  fanciful  or  fantastical  philo- 

162 


THE  MULTIPLE   LINE   OF  APPROACH 

sophical  considerations  on  the  problem  of  teaching  or 
learning  a  language  rapidly  and  well  ?  The  connexion  is 
clearer  than  one  might  imagine  at  first  sight,  for  each 
of  the  aphorisms  quoted  above  may  serve,  if  not  as  a 
definition  of  the  ninth  principle,  at  least  as  a  strong  sug- 
gestion of  what  the  principle  implies. 

Those  who  have  followed  us,  point  by  point,  in  our 
enumeration  and  analysis  of  the  eight  preceding  principles 
may  be  in  perfect  agreement  with  our  conclusions,  but 
may,  nevertheless,  be  sorely  troubled  as  to  how  they  are 
to  be  carried  out  in  practice.  On  many  points  there 
appear  to  be  conflicts  and  inconsistencies  ;  in  many 
cases  it  would  appear  to  be  exceedingly  difficult,  if  not 
impossible,  to  observe  two  or  more  of  these  principles 
simultaneously.  How  is  habit-forming  consistent  with 
interest  ?  How  can  we  combine  a  study  of  phonetics 
with  a  study  of  orthography  ?  How  can  we  combine  the 
development  of  our  spontaneous  capacities  with  that 
of  our  studial  capacities  ?  How  can  we  observe  the 
principle  of  accuracy  and  combine  it  with  other  principles 
which  are  seemingly  in  conflict  with  it — such  as  the  in- 
hibition of  our  powers  of  analysis  and  synthesis  ?  How 
are  we  to  foster  a  keen  appreciation  of  the  classical  or 
literary  style  of  composition,  and  yet  concentrate  on  the 
colloquial  and  trivial  ?  The  principles  of  gradation  and 
of  order  of  progression  seem  to  reveal  inconsistencies 
when  they  are  compared  with  each  other  ;  there  is  more 
than  a  seeming  inconsistency  between  the  process  of 
unconscious  assimilation  and  the  principle  of  concrete- 
ness.  Translation  is  destructive,  or  is  often  considered 
so,  of  the  power  of  '  thinking  in  the  foreign  language,'  and 
yet  it  is  suggested  that  the  student  should  do  translation 
work  and  at  the  same  time  train  himself  to  think  in  the 
foreign  language. 

163 


THE  PRINCIPLES   OF  LANGUAGE- STUDY 

These  and  many  other  problems  or  difficulties  suggested 
by  the  careful  study  of  the  foregoing  eight  principles  can 
only  be  solved  by  the  thorough  understanding  of  the 
spirit  of  eclecticism  underlying  this  ninth  principle.  We 
have  alluded  to  the  philosophy  of  the  complete  life  in 
order  that  we  may  better  realize  the  significance  of  what 
we  may  term  the  complete  method. 

This  complete  method,  mark  you,  is  not  a  compromise 
between  two  or  more  antagonistic  schools  ;  it  boldly  in- 
corporates what  is  valuable  in  any  system  or  method  of 
teaching  and  refuses  to  recognize  any  conflict,  except  the 
conflict  between  the  good  and  the  inherently  bad.  The 
complete  method  will  embody  every  type  of  teaching 
except  bad  teaching,  and  every  process  of  learning  except 
defective  learning. 

The  complete  method  (of  which  the  multiple  line  of 
approach  is  the  expression)  is  the  antithesis  of  the  special 
or  patent  method.  Patent  or  proprietary  methods  very 
often,  but  not  always,  resemble  patent  medicines.  We 
know  what  they  are.  A  patent  language  method,  like  a 
patent  medicine,  claims  to  prevent  or  to  cure  all  possible 
ills  (linguistic  or  physical,  as  the  case  may  be)  by  repeated 
applications  of  one  special  device  or  drug  ;  both  of  them 
claim  to  kill  innumerable  birds  with  one  stone.  One  is 
always  inclined  to  doubt  the  efficiency  of  an  instrument 
which  is  designed  to  perform  too  many  distinct  functions  ; 
a  tool  designed  to  serve  both  as  a  hairbrush  and  as  a 
hammer  is  not  likely  either  to  brush  or  to  hammer  very 
efficiently,  and  our  imagination  refuses  to  picture  what 
one  vehicle  could  possibly  afford  us  all  the  advantages  of 
a  bicycle,  a  motor-car,  a  wheelbarrow,  and  an  express 
train,  not  to  mention  those  of  a  boat  or  balloon.  One 
dish,  however  nutritive,  succulent,  and  satisfying,  will 
not  constitute  a  complete  banquet. 

164 


THE  MULTIPLE  LINE   OF  APPROACH 

Let  us  apply  the  principle  of  the  multiple  line  of  ap- 
proach to  the  solving  of  a  number  of  vexed  questions, 
well  known  to  all  those  who  have  read  or  participated  in 
discussions  and  controversies  on  the  subject  of  language- 
teaching. 

Shall  reading  be  intensive  or  extensive  ?  That  is  to 
say,  shall  we  take  a  text,  study  it  line  by  line,  referring 
at  every  moment  to  our  dictionary  and  our  grammar, 
comparing,  analysing,  translating,  and  retaining  every 
expression  that  it  contains  ?  Or  shall  we  take  a  large 
number  of  texts  and  read  them  rapidly  and  carelessly, 
trusting  that  quantity  will  make  up  for  the  lack  of  quality 
in  our  attention  and  the  lack  of  intensity  ? 

Shall  we  translate  ?  We  can  learn  much  from 
translation  ;  it  affords  us  many  types  of  interesting 
and  valuable  exercises.  Or  shall  we  ban  translation  ? 
For  we  know  that  under  certain  conditions  translation 
may  foster  and  encourage  more  than  one  vicious 
tendency. 

Shall  we  memorize  sentences  or  shall  we  learn  to  con- 
struct them,  both  synthetically  and  by  the  substitution 
process  ?  ^  Either  plan  seems  to  have  its  advantages  and 
its  disadvantages. 

Which  is  better  :  drill-work  or  free  work  ?  The  prin- 
ciple of  accuracy  inclines  us  towards  the  former  ;  the 
principle  of  interest  and  our  instinctive  striving  for 
naturalness  incline  us  towards  the  latter. 

Are  we  to  study  with  conscious  attention  or  with 
effortless  attention  ?  In  the  average  lesson  or  language- 
course,  the  former  alone  is  considered,  but  the  young 
child,  or  the  adult  assimilating  a  language  under  ideal 
conditions,  knows  no  other  than  the  latter. 

Shall  we  assimilate  our  language-material  by  reading 
^  See  page  176  and  footnote,  and  p.  177. 

165 


THE  PRINCIPLES   OF  LANGUAGE-STUDY 

or  by  listening  to  people  ?  Many  claim  to  have  mastered 
a  language  rapidly  and  successfully  by  the  one  method, 
while  many  others  ascribe  their  success  to  the  fact  that 
they  have  learnt  exclusively  by  the  other. 

Which  is  the  best  method  of  retaining  language- 
material  :  by  repeating  it  aloud  or  by  writing  it  ?  There 
again,  we  find  many  who  are  staunch  adherents  of  either 
method  (and  consequently  opponents  of  the  other). 

Active  or  passive  work  ?  Do  we  gain  and  retain  our 
impressions  by  speaking  and  writing,  or  do  we  in  reality 
acquire  proficiency  in  the  use  of  language  by  the  pro- 
cesses of  reading  and  listening  ? 

Without  the  principle  of  the  multiple  line  of  approach 
there  are  only  two  ways  of  settling  these  and  all  similar 
questions.  One  is  to  adopt  one  alternative,  rejecting  the 
second  ;  the  other  is  to  effect  a  working  compromise  be- 
tween the  two.  Shall  we  read  intensively  or  extensively  ? 
"  Read  intensively,"  says  one  ;  "  No,  read  extensively," 
says  another  ;  and  the  compromiser  comes  along  and 
says,  "  Read  neither  very  intensively  nor  very  extensive- 
ly." Shall  we  translate  or  shall  we  banish  translation  ? 
"  Translate  by  all  means,"  says  one  ;  "  Banish  transla- 
tion," says  another  ;  and  the  compromiser  says,  "  Trans- 
late a  little  occasionally,  but  do  not  let  the  translation 
be  particularly  good."  Drill- work  or  free  work  ?  The 
compromiser  suggests  something  between  the  two, 
mechanical  enough  to  destroy  naturalness,  and  free 
enough  to  encourage  inaccuracy.  Shall  we  memorize 
sentences,  or  shall  we  construct  them  ?  The  compro- 
miser suggests  that  we  should  aid  our  memory  by  doses  of 
mental  synthesis,  in  fact  just  enough  to  prevent  the  laws 
of  memorizing  from  operating. 

The  principle  of  the  multiple  line  of  approach  suggests 
a  third  and  better  procedure.     Instead  of  accepting  the 

166 


THE   MULTIPLE   LINE   OF   APPROACH 

one  and  rejecting  the  other,  instead  of  adopting  the 
middle  course  which  frequently  militates  against  the 
success  of  either  extreme,  this  principle  says,  "  Adopt 
them  both  concurrently,  but  not  in  one  and  the  same 
operation.  At  times  read  intensively  ;  at  others  read 
extensively.  At  appropriate  moments,,  and  for  specific 
purposes,  make  the  fullest  use  of  all  sorts  of  translation 
work  ;  at  other  moments,  and  for  other  specific  purposes, 
banish  translation  entirely.  At  times,  more  especially 
during  the  early  stages,  let  there  be  an  abundance  of 
drill-work  ;  later,  but  not  before  the  student  is  perfectly 
ripe  for  it,  let  us  introduce  free  work ;  and  then  let  the 
two  types  alternate.  At  certain  moments,  more  espe- 
cially during  the  early  stages,  let  the  memorizing  of  sen- 
tences be  carried  out  on  a  most  extensive  scale  ;  at  other 
moments,  as  a  distinctly  separate  operation,  let  us  cause 
the  student  to  perform  exercises  in  constructing  correct 
sentences  himself." 

We  have  had  occasion  to  note  that  this  principle 
suggests  the  inadvisability  of  killing  too  many  birds  with 
one  stone.  The  principle  goes  farther  and  adds  to  the 
figure  of  speech  just  quoted  the  two  following  corollaries, 
viz. :  "  Find  the  right  stone  to  kill  the  right  bird,"  and 
"  It  is  often  advisable  to  kill  one  bird  with  more  than  one 
stone."  There  are  many  different  ways  of  teaching  a 
difficult  sound,  there  are  many  different  ways  of  teaching 
a  difficult  point  in  grammar,  a  curious  form  of  construc- 
tion, or  of  causing  the  student  to  discriminate  between 
two  things  which  ought  not  to  be  confused.  In  these 
and  in  all  similar  cases,  there  is  no  reason  why  several 
methods  should  not  be  used  concurrently  ;  they  need  not 
be  stricjtly  co-ordinated.  The  cumulative  effect  of  ap- 
proaching the  difficulty  from  different  and  independent 
angles  will  certainly  secure  the  desired  result.     Super- 

167 


THE  PRINCIPLES   OF  LANGUAGE-STUDY 

ficial  and  rapid  work  on  most  points  plus  intensive  and 
thorough  work  on  certain  essential  specific  points  will 
generally  ensure  a  well-assimilated  whole.  Either  of 
these  methods  will  tend  to  correct  any  disadvantages 
attached  to  the  other  and  will  be  complementary  to  the 
other.  The  high  degree  of  accuracy  which  results  from 
intensive  work  will  tend  to  spread  by  contagion  to  that 
portion  of  the  work  which  must  necessarily  be  done  in  a 
more  summary  fashion. 

This  principle,  which  underlies  all  others,  leaves  the 
door  open  for  new  devices,  new  methods,  and  improve- 
ments on  the  old  ones.  It  leaves  us  free  to  welcome  and 
to  adopt  all  sorts  of  innovations,  provided  such  innova- 
tions are  likely  to  prove  of  value. 

We  will  quote  one  example  of  what  may  happen  when 
we  do  not  sufficiently  realize  the  importance  or  the  scope 
of  the  ninth  principle. 

The  teacher  of  French  may  consider  that  a  certain 
amount  of  theory  is  useful  and  helpful ;  he  may  consider 
it  necessary  to  explain  all  manner  of  things  to  students — 
how  certain  sounds  are  formed,  how  certain  verbs  are 
conjugated,  why  certain  constructions  must  be  used  ; 
he  may  consider  it  his  duty  to  give  information  on  hun- 
dreds of  doubtful  or  difficult  points.  And  he  is  often 
perfectly  justified  in  doing  so  ;  explanations  of  the  right 
sort  and  given  at  the  right  moment  are  indeed  valuable. 

This  same  teacher  considers  also  that  many  oppor- 
tvmities  should  be  given  of  hearing  French  spoken,  in 
order  to  train  his  student's  powers  of  observation  and  of 
semantic  association.  This  also  is  good  and  reasonable  ; 
passive  audition,  unconscious  or  semi-conscious  assimila- 
tion, immediate  understanding  and  expression,  are  pro- 
cesses the  value  of  which  we  have  always  insisted  upon. 

But  this  teacher,  too  anxious  to  kill  two  birds  with  one 

168 


THE   MULTIPLE   LINE   OF  APPROACH 

stone,  combines  the  two  forms  of  work  ;  he  says,  "  I  have 
a  number  of  difficult  things  to  explain,  and  I  will  explain 
them  in  French  ;  the  student  will  therefore  have  a  double 
gain."  The  student,  however,  unless  already  very  con- 
siderably advanced,  is  not  a  gainer  but  a  loser  ;  he  fails 
to  understand  the  explanation,  and  in  his  efforts  to  do  so 
he  fails  to  adopt  the  proper  receptive  attitude  towards 
the  actual  language  material.  After  all,  we  do  not  learn 
how  to  write  shorthand  from  books  written  exclusively 
in  shorthand,  and  the  book  which  teaches  us  how  to  use 
the  Morse  code  is  not  printed  exclusively  in  the  Morse 
code.  To  use  the  foreign  language  for  the  purposes  of  a 
vehicular  language  under  the  pretext  that  the  more  the 
student  hears  of  the  foreign  language  the  better  he  will 
learn,  is  a  method  which  stands  fully  condemned  when 
we  properly  realize  the  nature  and  scope  of  the  principle 
we  are  now  examining. 

We  may  sum  up  this  principle  of  the  multiple , line  of 
approach  fairly  concisely  in  the  following  terms  :  Let 
us  approach  the  language,  or  any  specific  point  in  the 
language,  simultaneously  from  several  distinct  points  of 
departure,  by  several  distinct  but  gradually  converging 
avenues.  The  observing  of  this  principle  will  alone 
enable  us  to  observe  consistently  and  successfully  the 
eight  other  vital  principles  which  it  has  been  the  object  of 
this  book  to  set  forth. 


^ 


169 


CHAPTER  XVI 

*  MEMORIZED   MATTER'   AND   *  CONSTRUCTED 
MATTER  ' 

UNTIL  we  know  more  about  speech-psychology 
and  the  ultimate  processes  of  language-study,  it 
is  doubtful  whether  we  can  embody  in  the  form 
of  a  concrete  principle  the  subject  treated  in  this  chapter. 
The  writer  would  prefer,  at  this  stage  of  our  knowledge, 
simply  to  submit  the  following  considerations  in  the  hope 
that  future  research  will  throw,  further  light  on  the  sub- 
ject and  render  it  possible  to  co-ordinate  it  with  those 
branches  of  linguistic  pedagogy  which  are  more  familiar 
to  us.  Indeed,  when  we  have  ascertained  experimentally 
the  exact  nature  of  what  we  shall  call  '  memorized  '  and 
'  constiTicted  '  speech-material,  it  is  conceivable  that  the 
whole  subject  will  become  so  clarified  that  it  will  be 
possible  to  reduce  to  one  main  principle  all  or  most  of 
what  has  been  said  in  the  foregoing  chapters. 

Now,  whenever  we  open  our  lips  to  speak,  or  whenever 
we  set  pen  to  paper,  it  is  with  the  object  of  producing  one 
or  more  units  of  speech.  These  units  may  be  short  and 
simple,  such  as  :  Yes,  No,  Here,  or  they  may  be  word- 
groups,  such  as  :  Very  well,  I  don't  know,  Yes,  if  I  can,  or 
they  may  be  complete  and  even  complicated  sentences 
containing  one  or  more  subordinate  clauses.  But  what- 
ever the  unit  may  be,  long  or  short,  simple  or  complex, 
one  thing  is  clear  :  each  unit  has  either  been  memorized  by 
the  user  integrally  as  it  stands  or  else  is  composed  by  the  user 

170 


MEMORIZED  AND   CONSTRUCTED  MATTER 

from  smaller  and  previously  memorized  units.  This  is  a 
fundamental  fact  about  speech  which  stands  out  clearly 
and  unmistakably ;  it  is  not  a  fanciful  supposition  or  an 
idle  conjecture,  it  is  an  axiomatic  truth. 

Now  let  us  term  '  memorized  matter  '  everything  that 
we  have  memorized  integrally,  and  '  constructed  matter  ' 
everything  that  we  have  not  so  memorized,  but  which 
we  compose  or  build  up  as  we  go  on.  Can  we  distinguish 
the  two  things  ?  In  most  cases  we  can.  Monosyllabic 
words  have  generally  (although  not  necessarily)  been 
memorized  as  they  stand  ;  we  say  and  understand  the 
word  cat,  because  once  upon  a  time  we  had  the  occasion  to 
hear  the  word  in  question  and  the  opportunity  to  connect 
it  with  its  meaning  and  to  retain  it.  The  word  cat  is 
included  in  our  memorized  matter.  Probably  most 
words  of  two  or  even  more  syllables  have  been  acquired  as 
memorized  matter.  Great  numbers  of  compound  words 
have  also  been  acquired  in  the  same  way.  A  consider- 
able number  of  word-groups  and  sentences  are  included 
in  our  memorized  matter.  Such  sentences  as  I  don't 
know,  Just  come  here,  Pick  it  up,  I  donH  want  it,  are 
most  probably  memorized  with  most  speakers. 

Now  consider  a  unit  of  speech  such  as  :  /  saw  Henry 
'Siddings  between  six  arid  half -past  at  the  corner  ofRithing- 
ton  Lane.  Is  it  the  sort  of  unit  which  we  should  use  as  a 
result  of  having  memorized  it  integrally  ?  An  actor  or 
reciter  may  indeed  have  occasion  to  do  so,  but  apart  from 
those  whose  duty  or  hobby  it  is  to  memorize  '  lines  '  it  is 
an  extremely  unlikely  specimen  of  memorized  matter. 
The  writer  has  just  composed  it,  and  does  not  even  know 
whether  there  exists  such  a  surname  as  Siddings  or  a 
place  called  Rithington  Lane ;  there  are  millions  of 
chances  to  one  that  it  is  an  entirely  original  sentence. 
Most  of  the  things  we  utter  or  write  come  into  the  cate- 

171 


THE  PRINCIPLES   OF  LANGUAGE-STUDY 

gory  of  constructed  matter  ;  their  component  parts  have 
been  memorized  integrally  and  so  constitute  memorized 
matter  ;  but  the  complete  units  are  constructed,  they  are 
the  result  of  rapid  and  probably  unconscious  acts  of 
synthesis. 

This  is  no  place  for  statistics,  even  if  data  were  avail- 
able ;  it  must  be  left  to  investigators  to  ascertain  the  re- 
lative amount  of  memorized  and  constructed  matter  used 
by  the  young  child  in  his  first  months  or  years  of  speech. 
Inquiries  of  this  sort  should  afford  some  valuable  and 
surprising  evidence  ;  the  writer  has  had  occasion  to  note 
that  a  French-speaking  child  of  about  ten  was  even  un- 
conscious of  the  composition  of  units  such  as  pomme  de 
terre  or  quatre-vingts,  just  as  the  average  adult  English 
person  is  unconscious  of  the  composition  of  fortnight 
or  nevertheless.^  What  will  certainly  complicate  such 
research  work  is  the  paradoxical  fact  that  constructed 
matter  may  become  memorized  by  dint  of  frequent 
repetition.  A  further  complication  is  added  by  the 
fact  that  the  two  types  of  matter  may  also  be  con- 
sidered from  the  point  of  view,  not  of  the  speaker, 
but  of  the  auditor. 

One  of  the  questions  that  concerns  us  at  present  is  to 
ascertain  what  should  be  the  right  proportions  of  memor- 
ized and  constructed  matter  in  the  initial  stages  of 
learning  a  foreign  language. 

Too  large  a  proportion  of  memorized  matter  will  render 
study  unnecessarily  tedious,  for  memorizing  work,  even 
under  the  best  of  conditions,  is  less  interesting  than  the 
piecing  together  of  known  units.  Too  large  a  proportion 
of  constructed  matter,  on  the  other  hand,  will  certainly 
result  in  an  artificial  sort  of  speech  or  a  pidgin  form, 
with  all  its  evil  consequences.  At  the  present  day,  as 
^  See  The  Scientific  Study  and  Teaching  of  Langimges,  pp.  103-1 19, 
172 


MEMORIZED   AND   CONSTRUCTED   MATTER 

in  the  past,  the  tendency  in  language-study  is  to  pay 
far  too  much  attention  to  constructing  and  not  nearly 
enough  to  memorizing. 

What  concerns  us  still  more  is  to  ascertain  definitely  by 
experiment  what  is  the  exact  nature  of  those  processes 
by  which  constructed  matter  is  derived  from  mem- 
orized matter.  We  must  find  out  what  really  does 
happen  in  the  case  of  young  children  in  the  first 
stages  of  their  speech-experience,  and  by  what  mental 
processes  those  persons  called  born  linguists  attain 
their  results. 

There  would  appear  to  be  three  distinct  manners  of 
producing  constructed  matter  ;  these  may  be  termed 
respectively  : 

(a)  Grammatical  construction. 

(b)  Ergonic  construction. 

(c)  Conversion. 

(a)  Grammatical  Construction 

This  process  consists  in  memorizing  '  dictionary 
words  '  (the  infinitives  of  verbs,  the  nominative  singular 
of  nouns,  the  masculine  nominative  singular  of  adjectives, 
etc.)  and  of  forming  sentences  from  them  (with  or  without 
the  intervention  of  translation)  by  means  of  applying 
the  various  rules  of  accidence,  syntax,  derivation,  and 
composition. 

The  following  is  a  typical  example  of  the  process.  An 
English  student  wishes  to  form  as  constructed  matter  the 
German  sentence  :  Ich  habe  mit  grosstem  Vergnilgcn  seinen 
frcundlichen  Vorschlag  angenommen,  from  the  previously 
memorized  units  ich,  haben,  mit,  gross,  Vergniigen,  sein, 
freundlich,  Vorschlag,  annehmen.  Besides  having  to  de- 
termine (in  accordance  with  rules  of  word-order)  the 

173 


THE   PRINCIPLES   OF  LANGUAGE -STUDY 

relative  position  of  the  nine  primary  units,  he  has  to 
perform  the  twelve  following  operations  : 

(1)  Choose  the  appropriate  form  of  the  pronoun  of  the 

first  person  singular. 

(2)  Choose  the  appropriate  tense  of  the  verb  annehmen. 

(3)  Derive  the  present  tense  first  person  singular  form 

of  haben. 

(4)  Determine  the  case  governed  by  the  preposition mi^. 

(5)  Derive  the  superlative  form  of  the  adjective  gross, 

(6)  Determine  the  gender  of  the  noun  VergniXgen. 

(7)  Derive  the  masculine  dative  singular  form  of  the 

superlative  adjective ^ro55^ — when  not  preceded 
by  a  determinative. 

(8)  Determine  the  gender  of  the  noun  Vorschlag. 

(9)  Determine  the  function  of  the  same  in  this  par- 

ticular sentence. 

(10)  Determine  the  form  of  the  possessive  adjective 

of  the  third  person  masculine  singular  when 
modifying  a  masculine  accusative  singular  noun. 

(11)  Determine  the  form  of  the  adjective  freundlich 

when  preceded  by  a  possessive  adjective  and 
when  modifying  a  masculine  accusative  noun. 

(12)  Derive  the  past  participle  angenommen  from  the 

infinitive. 

It  will  be  noticed  that  most  of  these  operations  require, 
in  addition  to  a  perfect  memory  of  the  grammatical 
rules  (including  numbers  of  word-lists),  a  fine  power  of 
logical  discrimination.  Needless  to  say,  no  speaker 
of  German  actually  does  perform  any  of  these  opera- 
tions (except  perhaps  on  very  special  and  rare  oc- 
casions), and  we  dismiss  as  a  patent  absurdity  the 
supposition  that  the  young  native  child  constructs  his 
matter  in  any  such  way. 

174 


MEMORIZED   AND   CONSTRUCTED   MATTER 

(b)  Ergonic  Construction 

In  this  process  we  work  from  an  entirely  different  sort 
of  memorized  matter  ;  instead  of  being  merely  '  dic- 
tionary words  '  it  consists  of  (a)  more  or  less  complete 
sentences,  and  (b)  units  of  speech  which  we  may  term 
'  ergons,'  i.e.  '  working  units  '  derived  and  inflected  in 
advance  by  the  teacher  (or  the  author  of  the  course),  each 
ergon  being  thus  quite  ready  for  use. 

The  following  is  a  typical  example  of  the  process  : 
A  fairly  simple  sentence  is  memorized  ;   let  us  say,  Ich 
kann  meinen  Stock  heute  nicht  nehmen,  "  I  can't  take 
my  stick  to-day."     Appropriate  groups  of  ergons  are  also 
memorized,  such  as  : 

A 

ich,  / 

B 

kann,  can 
muss,  must 
soil,  am  to 
werde,  shall 
konnte,  could 
musste,  had  to 
sollte,  ought  to 
wurde,  should 

C 

meinen  Stock,  my  stick 
meinen  Bleistift,  my  pencil 
Ihren  Regenschirm,  your  umbrella 
den  Stuhl,  the  chair 
denselben,  the  same 

175 


THE  PRINCIPLES   OF   LANGUAGE-STUDY 

ihn,  him,  it 
sie,  her,  it 
es,  it 

D 

heute,  to-day 
morgen,  to-morrow 
heute  morgen,  this  morning 
morgen  friih,  to-morrow  morning 
um  zwei  Uhr,  at  two  o'clock 
nachsten  Monat,  next  month 
nachste  Woche,  next  week 
nachstes  Jahr,  next  year 

E 

nicht,  not 

F 

nehmen,  take 
sehen,  see 

bringen,  bring,  take 
tragen,  carry,  take 
suchen,  look  for 
finden,  find 
bekommen,  get 

The  student  will  then  form  (as  constructed  matter)  as 
many  of  the  16,128  resultant  sentences  ^  as  is  considered 
necessary  for  this  particular  vocabulary.  This  will  be 
done  by  means  of  drills  and  habit-forming  exercises  based 
on  the  following  substitution  table  : 

1  See  100  English  Substitution  Tables,  by  the  author  of  the  present 
book  (Heffer,  Cambridge).  Also  the  series  of  "Auto -Translators  " 
(International  Students'  Bureau,  56  Russell  Square,  W.C.  1). 

176 


MEMORIZED  AND   CONSTRUCTED  MATTER 


A 

B 

C 

D 

E 

F 

Ich 

kann 

meinen  Stock 

heute 

nioht 

nehmen 

muss 

meinen  Bleistif  t 

morgen 

eehen 

soil 

Ihren  Regenschirm 

heute  morgen 

bringen 

werde 

den  Stuhl 

morgen  f  riih 

tragen 

konnte 

denselben 

um  zwei  Uhr 

suchen 

musste 

ihn 

nachsten  Monat 

finden 

soUte 

sie 

nachste  Woche 

bekommen 

wiirde 

es 

nachstes  Jahr 

The  essential  difference  between  grammatical  and 
ergonic  construction  lies  in  the  sort  of  memorized  matter 
used  in  either  case.  In  grammatical  construction  the 
memorized  matter  consists  exclusively  of  what  we  have 
called  '  dictionary  words  '  (a  large  proportion  of  which 
require  modifying  in  some  form  or  other  before  being 
available  for  use  in  a  sentence),  whereas  in  ergonic  con- 
struction two  sorts  of  memorized  matter  are  required  : 
a  more  or  less  complete  sentence  and  a  number  of  ergons 
(units  of  language  inflected  or  composed  in  advance  for 
the  student,  instead  of  by  the  student). 


(c)  Conversion 

This  process  consists  in  memorizing  a  number 
of  sentences  all  composed  in  a  more  or  less  uniform 
way. 

When  these  sentences  have  been  memorized,  the 
student  is  taught  by  a  series  of  appropriate  drills  and 
habit-forming  exercises  to  convert  each  sentence  into 
another  form. 

The  following  is  a  typical  example  of  the  process.  The 
student  memorizes  the  ten  following  sentences  : 

12  177 


THE   PRINCIPLES   OF  LANGUAGE- STUDY 


(1) 

He  goes  to  the  station. 

(2) 

He  comes  here. 

(3) 

He  takes  it. 

(4) 

He  waits  for  it. 

(5) 

He  stays  there. 

(6) 

He  writes  a  letter. 

(7) 

He  reads  a  hook. 

(8) 

He  speaks  French. 

(9) 

He  gets  up. 

(10) 

He's  here.^ 

He  then  listens  to  the  teacher,  who  says  : 

He  goes  to  the  station     .     He  doesn't  go  to  the  station. 
He  comes  here      .         .     He  doesnH  come  here, 
etc.  etc. 

and  after  one  or  more  repetitions  performs  the  conversion 
himself  in  the  same  way,  with  or  without  prompting  by 
the  teacher  or  the  book. 

The  teacher  will  then  change  the  sentences  in  some 
other  manner,  for  instance  : 

He  goes  to  the  station     .     Does  he  go  to  the  station  ? 
He  comes  here      .  .     Does  he  come  here  ? 

etc.  etc. 

The  student  listens,  and  subsequently  performs  the  same 
series.  On  other  occasions  each  of  the  ten  sentences  may 
be  converted  into  forms  such  as  : 

He'll  go  to  the  station,  etc. 
He  wants  to  go  to  the  station,  etc. 
He's  going  to  the  station,  etc. 
He  didnH  go  to  the  station,  etc. 
He  went  to  the  station,  etc. 

1  The  inclusion  of  an  exceptional  form  ('  He  isn't  here ')  in  a 
conversion  table  is  a  useful  feature  in  these  exercises. 

178 


MEMORIZED  AND   CONSTRUCTED   MATTER 

He's  gone  to  the  station^  etc. 

Ifs  impossible  for  him  to  go  to  the  station,  etc. 

He  always  goes  to  the  station,  etc. 

In  the  case  of  conversion  the  difference  between  mem- 
orized and  constructed  matter  is  not  so  marked  as  in  the 
two  synthetic  operations,  nor  is  the  yield  of  constructed 
matter  so  great.  Indeed,  in  extreme  cases,  the  form  into 
which  the  original  sentence  is  to  be  converted  will  have 
to  be  learnt  integrally,  and  so  becomes  in  itself  memorized 
matter.  On  the  other  hand,  some  forms  of  this  type  of 
work  are  practically  identical  with  exercises  based  on 
ergonic  construction,  and  for  these  two  reasons  it  has 
been  held  that  conversion  is  not  a  distinct  process  for 
forming  constructed  matter,  but  merely  a  modified  form 
of  ergonic  work.  Whether  this  view  is  justified  or  not 
is  a  matter  more  of  academic  than  of  practical  interest 
to  the  language-teacher. 

These  then  appear  to  be  the  only  three  processes 
known  by  which  memorized  matter  can  be  developed  and 
expanded  into  original  composition.  What  we  have  called 
grammatical  construction  is  the  classical  and  almost 
universal  method.  What  we  have  called  ergonic  con- 
struction is  embodied  more  or  less  unsystematically  in  a 
number  of  language-courses  and  the  more  enlightened 
books  of  instruction.  Conversion  is  also  practised,  but 
still  in  a  sporadic  and  desultory  fashion. 

Now,  some  thirty  years  ago  the  reform  movement 
started.  In  several  different  countries  bands  of  zealous 
pioneers  took  up  arms  against  the  then  prevailing  system 
and  sought  to  put  an  end  to  it.  The  reform  prospered. 
The  reformers  have  carried  all  before  them,  and  the  daring 
innovators  of  twenty  or  thirty  years  ago  now  enjoy  the 
prestige  that  their  efforts  have  earned  for  them. 

179 


THE  PRINCIPLES   OF  LANGUAGE -STUDY 

What  was  the  nature  of  this  reform  ?  What  abuses 
has  it  swept  away  ?  And  for  what  innovations  have  we 
to  thank  it  ?  It  would  appear,  on  analysis,  to  have  had 
a  threefold  object  : 

(a)  To  promote  the  rational  and  systematic  study  of 

pronunciation  by  means  of  phonetic  theory  and 
transcription. 

(b)  To  promote  the  idea  that  a  language  is  used  prim- 

arily as  a  means  of  communicating  thoughts. 

(c)  To  promote  the  idea  that  foreign  languages  should 

be  learned  by  methods  approximating  to  those 
by  which  we  learn  our  native  tongue. 

The  first  two  objects  have  certainly  been  attained ; 
phonetics  is  the  order  of  the  day,  and  both  teachers  and 
students  have  to  use  phonetic  symbols  whether  they  like 
it  or  not ;  moreover,  the  new  generation  does  recognize 
that  the  deciphering  and  analysis  of  ancient  texts  is  not 
the  primary  use  of  language. 

The  third  object  has  not  been  so  successfully  pursued  ; 
indeed,  we  are  still  very  far  from  learning  the  foreign 
tongue  by  the  same  processes  as  those  by  which  we  learnt 
our  own.  The  chief  reason  for  this  failure  was  a  bad 
diagnosis  of  the  chief  evils  of  the  system  hitherto  em- 
ployed. Many  of  the  reformers  and  most  of  their 
disciples  imagined  '  translation  '  to  be  the  root  of  the  evil, 
and  so  translation  in  every  shape  or  form  was  banned  ; 
there  must  be  no  bilingualism  at  all,  and  so  the  mother- 
tongue  must  be  excluded  from  the  course,  the  lessons 
must  be  conducted  entirely  in  the  foreign  language. 

But  translation  and  the  use  of  the  mother-tongue,  as  it 
turns  out,  are  perfectly  harmless  and  in  many  cases 
positively  beneficial ;  the  evil  lay  in  the  exaggerated 
attention  which  had  always  been  paid  to  grammatical 
180 


MEMORIZED  AND   CONSTRUCTED   MATTER 

construction ;  that  was  the  dragon  that  the  St  Georges 
might  well  have  slain  had  not  the  red  herring  of  '  trans- 
lation '  unfortunately  been  drawn  across  the  track.  As  it 
was,  the  red  herring  was  duly  run  down  and  annihilated, 
and  the  dragon  still  lives  ! 

The  misunderstanding  was  natural  enough  ;  logicians 
would  quote  it  as  an  example  of  the  fallacy  of  the  False 
Cause.  The  process  of  grammatical  construction  was 
carried  out  by  means  of  a  vicious  form  of  translation 
exercise,  and  the  result  was  utterly  bad.  Two  important 
reforms  might  have  been  effected  :  in  the  first  place,  the 
vicious  form  of  translation  might  have  been  replaced  by 
a  beneficial  form ;  and  secondly,  new  and  more  worthy  uses 
of  translation  might  have  been  found.  But  the  act  of 
translation  itself  (nay,  the  mere  use  of  the  mother-tongue) 
was  made  the  scapegoat  and  so  paid  the  penalty.  It  is 
now  time  for  a  second  band  of  reformers  to  attack  and  to 
destroy  the  original  cause  of  unsuccessful  language-study, 
viz.  grammatical  construction,  or  at  any  rate  to  limit  it 
to  special  cases  and  to  appropriate  occasions.  It  is  time, 
too,  to  rehabilitate  in  some  measure  the  character  of  the 
comparatively  innocent  process  of  translation,  and  to 
remove  the  stigma  attached  to  those  who  still  use  the 
mother-tongue  as  a  vehicular  language,  and  by  so 
doing  proceed  naturally  enough  from  the  known  to 
the  unknown. 

These  are  no  reactionary  suggestions  ;  they  are  made 
in  the  spirit  of  the  nine  essential  principles  treated  in  the 
previous  chapters,  and  are  not  in  contradiction  to  the 
urgent  plea  set  forth  in  these  pages  for  the  recognition 
and  fostering  of  our  '  spontaneous  '  capacities  for  lan- 
guage-study. We  can  afford  to  ignore  no  necessary  tool 
in  our  efforts  to  teach  well  and  to  produce  perfect  results, 
and  translation  is  often  a  necessary  tool,  especially  during 

181 


THE  PRINCIPLES   OF  LANGUAGE-STUDY 

the  process   of  deriving  constructed  from  memorized 
matter. 

We  suggest  for  the  moment  no  tenth  principle  based 
on  these  considerations  ;  we  submit  the  problem  and  we 
more  than  hint  at  a  solution.  It  is  now  time  for  experi- 
mental work  on  '  ergonic  '  lines,  and  the  data  to  be 
obtained  thereby  will  enable  us  to  form  our  conclusions 
and  to  embody  them  among  the  principles  of  language- 
study. 


N 


182 


INDEX 


Accidence,  a  branch  of  lingiiistics, 

24,  126 
Accuracy,  principle   of,    21,     22, 

Chapter  IX 
Action-drill,  effect  of,  96 
Active  or  passive  work  ?  166 
Aim  of  the  student,  15,  16 
Archaic  speech,  54,  127 
Articulation  exercises,  object  of, 

20,  121 
at  what  stage  to  introduce, 

28,  151 

description  of,  89,  90 

as    a    means    of    ensuring 

accuracy,  108 
Articulation,  mental  or  *  inner,'  53, 

93 
Attention,  conscious  and  uncon- 
scious, 165 
Audition,  opportunities  for,   118, 

119 
Automatism,  necessity  for,  20,  21 

—  nature  of,  98,  99 

—  acquired  by  repetition,  101 

Bantu  languages,  38,  150 
Bewilderment,  elimination  of,  27, 
140,  141 

Children,  and  language,  37 

—  bilingual,  40,  41 

—  Belgian  refugee,  41 

—  use  spontaneous  capacities,  43, 
82 

—  successful  acquirers  of  foreign 
languages,  44 

—  Btudial  methods  unknown  to, 
48 

—  not    averse    to    forming    new 
habits,  86 

—  linguistic  environment  of.  111 

—  early  phonetic  work,  151 

—  unconscious     of    elements     in 
compound  words,  172 


Chinese    characters,    in   Japanese 

writing,  53 
habit  of  writing,  with  brush, 

85 
Chinook  jargon,  107 
Chorus-work,  23,  120,  121 
Classical   speech,    studial   process 

necessary  in  order  to  learn,  48, 

54 
Colloquial  speech,  as  standard,  22 
as  used  by  average  speaker, 

36,  47 
compared       with       vulgar 

speech,  39 

and  studial  work,  49,  54 

and   inaccuracy,    106,    107, 

108 

grammar  of,  141 

used  in  passages,  145 

Competition  as  factor  of  interest, 

27,  144 
Complete  method,  164 
Concreteness,  principle  of,  25,  26, 

Chapter  XII 
"  Constructed    matter,"    30,    31, 

Chapter  XVI 
Context   as   method   of   teaching 

meanings,  26,  133 
Conversion,  a  studial  form  of  work, 

14,  49,  50 

—  method     for    producing    con- 
structed matter,  30,  31 

—  drills  as  aid  to  accuracy,  110, 
121 

—  process    described,    177,     178, 
179 

Corrective  courses  require  studial 

capacities,  15 
require     explanations,     21, 

143 

when  necessary,  55 

nature  of,  56 

Course,  length  of,  16,  64,  65 

183 


THE   PRINCIPLES   OF  LANGUAGE-STUDY 


Course-designing,  18,  76 
Cramming,  28,  139,  160 
Cummings,  Dr  T.  F.,  quoted,  156 

Deaf-mutes,  93 

Definition  as  method  of  teaching 

meanings,  26,  133 
Depuis,    English    equivalent    of, 

130,  131,  133,  134 
Dialect,  39,  40 
'  Dictionary  -  words,'        compared 

with       '  working      words  '      or 

ergons,  30,  159,  173,  175 
Direct  method,  31,  179,  180,  181 

abuse  of,  124 

and  concreteness,  131,  132 

Drill-work,  to  ensure  automatism, 

21 

—  compared  with  free  work,  24, 
25,  121,  128,  165,  166,  167 

—  various  types  of,  96 

—  necessity  for,  136 

—  not    necessarily    uninteresting, 
137,  146 

Ear-training,  necessity  for,  17,  70, 
108,  157 

—  as   initial  preparation,  20,  28, 
64 

—  description  of,  88,  89 

—  as  a  means  of  reception,  118 

—  arguments  for  and  against,  151 
Eclecticism,  29,  161,  162,  164 
Egger,  Victor,  quoted,  93 
Elementary   stage,   supreme    im- 
portance   of    the,    16,    17,    18, 
Chapter  V 

Ergonics,  127,  182 

Ergonic    construction,    compared 

with  grammatical  construction, 

30,  173 

—  description  of,  175,  176,  177 
Ergons,  159,  160 
Etymologv,  a  branch  of  linguistics, 

24,  126* 

—  of  the  studial  order,  50 

—  abuse  of,  51 
Etymons,  159 
Examinations,  62,  63 
Exercises,     articulation,     20,     28, 

89,  90,  108,  121,  151,  157 

184 


Exercises,  conversion,  14,  30,  31, 
49,  50,  110,  121,  177,  178,  179 

—  fluency,  90,  121 

—  question  and  answer,  96,  121 
Explanations,  abuse  of,  102 

—  as  means  of  eliminating  be- 
wilderment, 142,  143 

—  sometimes  helpful,  168 

—  in  foreign  language,  169 
Extensive  reading,  compared  with 

intensive  reading,  165,  166,  167 
Eye-work    contrasted    with    ear- 
work  : 
Ears  before  eyes,  23,  53,  117 
Abuse  of  eye-work,  42,  49,  70 
Successful     results     from     ear- 
work,  44 
Eye -work  of  the  studial  order, 

49 
Opposing  views  on  subject,  160 

Facility,  fallacy  of,  116 
False  gradation,  116,  117 
Fluency,  exercises,  90,  121 

—  accuracy  in,  108 

—  immediate  or  gradual  ?  156, 
157,  158 

Game-like  exercises,  27,  144,  146 
German    prepositions    and    cases, 
100 

—  substitution  table,  177 
Gestures,  96,  135 

Gift  for  language -study,  14,  33, 
36,  43,  44,  94 

Gradation,  principle  of,  22,  23, 
24,  Chapter  X 

'  Grammatical  construction  '  com- 
pared with  '  ergonic  construc- 
tion,' 30,  173,  174,  179,  181 

Habit-forming  and  habit-adapt- 
ing, principle  of,  20,  21,  43,  80, 
Chapter  VIII 

—  process,  17,  19,  20,  21,  136 

—  and  interest,  26 

—  in  initial  stage,  69 

—  as  initial  preparation,  85,  86, 
93 

Habits,  utilization  of  existing,  19, 
21,  85,  86,  104,  105 


INDEX 


Habits,  bad,  positive  and  negative, 
72 

forming  of,  84 

how  to  prevent,  121 

cause  of,  122 

Heuristic  method,  139 

Idiomatic  forms,  159 
Immediate    association,    26,    132, 
133,  134,  135 

—  comprehension,  20,  94,  95,  96 

—  and    prolonged    memory,    23, 
119,  120 

Imperative  drill,  96 
Inaccuracy,  two  types  of,  22 
Inconsistencies,  seeming,  163 
'  Incorrect '   or   '  ungrammatical ' 

English,  39 
Incubation,  periods  of,  65 
Initial   preparation,   principle   of, 

19,  20,  Chapter  VII 
Intensive  and  extensive  reading, 

165,  166,  167 
Interest,  principle  of,   26,  27,  28, 

Chapter  XIII 

—  fallacy  in  connexion  with,  137, 
138,  139 

Intonation,  when  to  introduce,  28, 
153,  154,  157 

—  accuracy  in,  108 

—  and  proportion,  123 

—  English  system  of,  37 
Inventions,  evolution  in,  75,  76 
Irregularities,  shall  we  include  or 

exclude  ?  27,  155,  158 
Isolating  habit,  17,  71 

Japanese  writing,  53 
Jespersen,  Professor,  78 

Language  of  ceremony,  15 

—  of  savage  peoples,  37 
Latent    capacities    for    language - 

study,  46,  47,  82 
Linguistics,  five  chief  branches  of, 
24,  80,  126 

•  Memorized  matter,'  30,  31,  Chap- 
ter XVI 
Memorizing  key -sentences,  64 

—  word-groups,  71,  157 

—  on  a  large  scale,  91,  92 


Memorizing  contrasted  with 
theory -learning,  100,  165,  166, 
167 

—  and  fear  of  tedium,  101 
Mental   reading  and  writing,  50, 

87,  91 
Method  of  discovery,  139 
Methods  of  the  future,  76,  77 
Mimicry,  20,  90,  91 
Morse  code,  169 
Multiple  line  of  approach,  principle 

of,  29,  30v  Chapter  XV 
Mystery  words  and  sentences,  142 

Nonsense  words,  88  n. 

Oral  repetition,  119 

Order  of  progression,  ancient  and 
modem,  159,  160 

Orthography,  a  branch  of  lin- 
guistics, 24,  126 

—  not  a  product  of  nature,  52 

—  accuracy  in,  109,  112 

—  and  proportion,  124 

Phonetics,  a  branch  of  linguistics, 
24,  126 

—  progress  made  by  science  of,  77 

—  English  and  French  systems 
compared,  103 

—  data  furnished  by,  112 
Phonetic  dictation,  88 
Phonetic       transcription,       more 

'  natural '  than  traditional  spell- 
ing, 52 

exclusive  use  of,  109    . 

and  proportion,  124 

the  acme  of  simplicity,  141 

arguments  for  and  against, 

162,  153,  157 

and  the  reform  movement, 

180 
Pidgin-speech,     a     form     of     in- 
accuracy, 22,  42,  55,   56,   110, 
111 

—  as  an  aim,  62 

—  better  than  none,  72 

—  definition  and  examples  of,  107 

—  and  constructed  matter,  173 
Plateaux,  144 

Principles  of  language-teaching, 
18,  19,  Chapter  VI 

185 


THE  PRINCIPLES  OF  LANGUAGE-STUDY 


Progress,  a  factor  of  interest,  27, 

143,  144 
Programme  of  study,  depends  on 

aim  of  student,  16,  16,  65,  66 
Proportion,  principle  of,   24,   26, 

Chapter  XI 
Psychologists  and  language -study, 

78,  109 

Question-and-answer  exercises,  96, 
121 

Rate  of  progress,  23,  65,  73,  80, 

113,  114 
Rational    order    of    progression, 

principle    of,    28,    29,    Chapter 

XIV 
Reading  should   be  preceded  by 

oral  work,  119 
Reception  before  production,  23, 

118 
Reform  movement,  179,  180,  181 
Repetition,  and   automatism,  21, 

101 

—  and  interest,  21,  101 

—  definition  of,  101 

Rules  and  exceptions,  lists  of,  115 

Saussure,  de,  78 

Semantics,  a  branch  of  linguistics, 
24,  25 

—  bad  habits  in  connexion  with, 
71 

—  future  of,  77 

—  inaccuracy  in,  110 

—  data  afforded  by,  112 

—  and  gradation,  115,  116 

—  and  proportion,  127 
Shortened  forms,  156 
Shorthand,  and  orthography,  49, 

52,  149 

—  not  learnt  by  method  of  dis- 
covery, 139 

—  text-books  not  written  in  short- 
hand, 169 

Special     or     patent    method    in 

language -study,  164 
Spelling,  reformed,  52 

—  difficulti€>s  of,  54 
Spontaneous  capacities  for  acquir- 
ing speech,  13,  14,  Chapter  I 


Student    and    his    aim,    15,    16, 

Chapter  IV 
Studial    capacities    for    acquiring 

speech,  14,  Chapter  II 
why  we  must  use,   14,   15, 

Chapter  III 
Substitution  process,  165 

—  table,  176  n.,  177 
Sweet,  Dr,  78 

Syntax,  a  branch  of  linguistics,  24, 
126 

—  and  gradation,  116 

Teacher  and  student,  27,  145 
Theory  and  practice,  19,  82,  83, 

168 
'  Tonetics,'  37 
Translation,  as  method  of  teaching 

meanings,  26,  132 

—  abuse  of,  ff,  71,  180 

—  a  form  of  conversion,  49 

—  a  studial  process,  50 

—  the  art  of,  63 

—  or  no   translation  ?    166,    166, 
167 

—  and  the  reform  movement,  180, 
181 

Trial  and  error,   method  of,    19, 
83,  84,  111 

Unconscious  assimilation,  87,  96, 

168 
Units  of  speech,  116,  170 
Unphonetic  writing,  53 
Unwritten  English  grammar,  38, 

39 

Variety,  necessity  for,  27,  147 
Vicious  tendencies,  we  must  react 

against,  56,  107,  124 
relative  immunity  from,  57, 

58 
various  types  of,  70,  71,  72, 

102,  122 
Vocabulary,  nucleus  of,  114 

—  selection  of,  127 

Word-order,  inaccuracy  in,  109 
Word  or  sentence  first  ?  154,  155 
Written  or  spoken  language  first  ? 
149,  150 


W  HOMF  lice 

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